Someone needs to
by Jay Magic
Summary: What if Felicity Smoak stopped instead of walking down to the Batcave she decided to interfere and talk to Tommy Merlyn now that he knows about Oliver and Team Arrow. AU version on what could change. some things stay the same a lot of things changes.
1. Hi

"Hey Tommy." Felicity called out watching the barman restock his fridge with the copious amount of alcohol that was to be consumed during the space of eight hours.

Tommy nodded back to the blond IT girl as he went back to restocking the shelves. Ignoring the fact that her footsteps was leading to the pit of destruction, he briefly mused that someone as beautiful as her shouldn't be in be in such a dark place, mixed up with Oliver's stupidity.

Felicity stood there for a moment staring at Tommy Merlyn and made a split second decision not to head down right away but to try to help Oliver and Tommy's relationship.

Tommy was briefly startled when he noticed a hand on the counter, following that appendages he saw the blond attached to it looking slightly lost. "Hi- eh' I thought I should come say hi. I am Felicity by the way." She greeted offering her hand .

"O...K" Tommy replied hesitantly, he was unsure why Oliver's sidekick or whatever wanted with him, thinking about the amount of times she and the body guard had just walked past without saying a single word.

"I can see that you are confused but I just thought you should at least know my name before I shouted at you" Felicity replied honestly.

"You are going to shout at me?" Tommy asked slightly amused, he had to admit that she was the first girl ever to give him a warning about what she was about to do, others normally just went on with the slapping or shouting.

"Yes, I think you need someone to do that for you." her voice was bolder than before, "I should be that person."

"So this is for my benefit?" he questioned wondering where this conversation was going.

"Yes because someone has to tell you that even though you are completely justified in being angry with Oliver and horrified that he kills he is still your best friend. You have know him since you were four or something - I actually don't know how you guys met, someone should really tell me." she mused aloud. "But the point is you and Oliver are best friend you shouldn't just cut him off because he has one bad habit and yeah that habit is murder and technically you could have called the police on him and told everyone he's the vigilante running around, also thank you for not saying anything cause then they will investigate and find out about me and if anyone finds out that I hacked into the DMV to change my weight then it will be a travesty not to mention I would go to jail for all that illegal hacking, not that there is a legal hacking… well there **is** but the government just tends to label every hack against them as _illegal_ which is totally unfair like what if they are the only one with the information you need, Am I just meant to sit there doing nothing?" Felicity asked

Oliver stood in the shadow quietly watching Tommy and Felicity converse catching a few of the words of their conversation, as far as he could tell they were talking about hacking, if Oliver thought his presence would be appreciated he would have joined in.

"Sorry went off track there" Felicity apologised realising she had been rumbling. "I was against it too but the men Oliver 'puts down they are all bad guys and they destroy lives."

"So he can just go kill them because they are bad? Isn't that what **exactly** prison is for. What gives him the right to go around killing people?"

"It's not like that. He changed."

"I get it when he was on the island he changes adapted to survive but he is back and he can't just keep doing what he wants like he is still on Lian Yu... and unless you can tell me that he kills them in self defence I don't want to hear it." Tommy finished ready to take the half empty crate back upstairs he would continue filling up the fridge later when he wasn't getting lecture by 'Girl Friday'. "Also stop hacking into things if you don't want to get arrested."

"Wait does that mean you want me to leave your speeding tickets alone?"

"My what?" Tommy asked placing the crate back down.

"Once you found out I decided to follow you" Felicity said aloud before hearing what that sounded like. "Not being a stalker or anything I promise." she could actually feel herself blushing. "I just meant use a little traffic camera here and there to track your car to see where you go like 'oh is Tommy turning left to go to the police and spill his guts' not become some creepy stalker that follows your every move. I just wanted a little heads up to… you know pack up my things and head out of town"

"Uh-huh"

"No, it was just a basic algorithm that followed you licence plate if it went any where near one police plaza or any where near _any_ police station in the city. I was following your car and not you, not that you aren't more interesting than your car because you are, very interesting and it is a nice car."

"Felicity" Tommy interrupted, in the brief three minute conversation he could already tell that if he didn't get her back on track that she would probably start talking about something else. Tommy found himself _not _being annoyed or irritated by her, maybe it was the ramblings or the fact that she was trying to look out for Oliver or the fact that she seemed like a good person -minus the whole working with someone who kills people.

"Yeah sorry about that, I was saying..what was I saying?" Felicity asked forgetting her original point.

"Speeding tickets." Tommy prompted.

"Oh yeah right, so you speed a lot, like a lot of a lot and I know you drive like a super fast car and my mini in all it's wonderful glory can't compare to yours in speed but seriously think of slowing down, you got like three speeding ticket in one day and I removed it from the system but then again if you had to pay the fines maybe you will learn to slow down. But you are super rich so I doubt these fines even affect your day not like when I got fined I had to budget whether I wanted to eat or if I needed electricity that month…. but I was a poor college student at the time and every penny counted. That's what made me hack into the DMV in the first place, I couldn't eat anymore ramen noodles."

"I think you should have a drink" Tommy said sliding a bottle across the counter to where Felicity sat.

"I, no. I don't drink beer. Do you have a mojito?"

"It's a bar." Tommy pointed out. "I'll make you a mojito and you can sit and tell me all about hacking into various government website." Tommy found himself offering, he wasn't even sure why, maybe he was lonely.

He wasn't talking to Oliver, couldn't tell Laurel why he has done a one eight on their friendship after defending Ollie so much when he first came back and he hadn't been to see Thea or Moria for weeks since finding out.

"I can do that or I can help you stack the shelves with an ungodly amount of alcohol instead of giving you a laundry list of the crimes I've committed."

"You could do that, but I mean at this point my why stop." Tommy teased, it took a few seconds for Felicity to realise that he was only making fun of her and the glare she tried to level at him was only half effective giving the way she was blushing. "Don't worry, bar tender confidentially has been invoke the moment I offered you the drink, what's said here doesn't leave my lips" Tommy chuckled.

"Okay a story for a story Thomas Merlyn, son of Rebecca and Malcolm Merlyn whose GPA is actually good for a guy who partied as much as you did and who spent a semester going to culinary school."

"Are you sure you aren't a stalker, Felicity?" Tommy asked raising one eyebrow. "Cause it's okay if you are, you won't be the first stalker I shared a drink with."

"Not a stalker just a really good hacker Mr. Merlyn, a very good one who happens to know of ways to tank someone's credit" Felicity faux threatened watching as Tommy went about making her the mojito she requested.

"Okay got it don't piss off the genius" Tommy waited for Felicity to take a sip before adding "Stalker" to his sentence.

"Embarrassing story time" Felicity demanded. "Oh and there better be some type of crime."

"I am an open book all my exploits are in the papers"

"I doubt _all _your exploits are. Stories, I've already confessed to hacking the government."

She wasn't due to go downstairs for another hour so she had time to relax and talk, plus Tommy made a really good mojito.


	2. She's my stalker

That Friday night when Felicity came in, Tommy has already stacked up crates of around the bar and was simply waiting for her to turn up, with the free help she offered Tommy had even been able to ask Meghan to start later.

It had become their routine, instead of Felicity just walking past, she now spent a few minutes every day talking to Tommy and asking about his day.

On Fridays, she would come after finishing up at QC, have a couple of drinks and help him set up before the club opened and before she was needed downstairs to hack for any information about the 'villain of the week'.

"So my friends at work may think I am an alcoholic floozy" Felicity greeted setting her bag down by the bar and getting to work.

"Okay" Tommy accepted it in stride, while double checking the number of champagne bottles they had for the VIP area, there was this random Chinese businessman who had taken to booking one of the VIP tables on Friday nights and couldn't get enough of the champagne so Tommy had decided to add another ten bottles to the weekly order.

"Not okay, they came last week Friday and spotted my car here after I lied and said I couldn't make it, so they were grilling me about why I didn't find them and I made up this lie about meeting a guy called Pedro and having a one night stand and _then_ on _Sunday_ Louise came here for her sister's bachelorette and saw my car so she thinks I came back and hooked up with someone else and who has their bachelorette on a Sunday, that's just inconsiderate to everyone. Plus Aaron-"

"Is that the one with the onion breath" Tommy asked stacking the Champagne in the fridge and moving onto the water.

"Yeah onion breath." Felicity nodded, she always started with the wines lining them up from white to rosé to red, that way it looked more colourful when she was finished. "He heard about my alleged floozy behaviour and invited everyone here tonight just so I will hang out with him/ them."

"Why don't you?" Tommy asked stopping what he was doing, there were quite a few bottles of whiskey left over from last week, he may not even need to order any more for a while.

"Onion breath. Plus he is being trying to get me to go out with him since the first day I started at QC, I guess he thinks once I am drunk I don't mind sleeping with him, and I will have to be drunk to deal with that onion breath."

"No I mean, why don't you go out with the girls from work. It's a Friday night and you've already blown them off once."

"I can't. I'm helping Oliver track down some weapons that-"

"Felicity you can't stop living your life to hang out in the basement of a club just to help Oliver," Tommy said critically.

"I'm not. I just need to find these weapons, they used the same offshore shipping company as whoever to-"

"It's Friday night, let the police investigate these weapons and take the day off. You should be here enjoying it with friends… tell you what, if you text the girls from work and say that you are in I'll get you a VIP table for the night, on the house." Tommy offered. "Just think about it. It will just be you girls and I will make sure the bouncer keeps onion breath away from you."

He didn't want to push her too much but Felicity spent as much time in Verdant as he did and even if the people at work were jumping to the conclusion after seeing her car parked outside on just two occasions there weren't exactly wrong in saying she spent way too much time here.

"Okay, but how will I explain the VIP table. I don't earn enough at QC, cause that will just raise more question, not only will I be an alcoholic floozy I'll also have a money management problem."

"You could always tell them the truth."

"Oh yeah, hi guys just so you know I am **_not_** an alcoholic nor am I promiscuous, I just happen to work for the Hood who by the way is our Boss's son Oliver Queen, yep, that Oliver Queen the one who spent five years on a deserted island. What you think that crazy. **_No way_**," Felicity gasped in mock horror.

"Well listen to this; Oliver came back to exact revenge on all the people who have failed this city based on a book his dad gave him. No why are you looking at me like I am crazy I can prove it just follow me downstairs, why yes this club has a secret sub-basement where he does all his hood research and by he I mean me cause I do all the illegal hacking into the police system and people's computer and gather all the information for him… oh wait is that the number to the mental asylum? Well, can't say I blame you." Felicity acted out getting Tommy full attention. "See what happens when I tell the truth, I end up in a mental institution under lock and key."

"That was an amazing performance." Tommy grinned "_BUT_ I was thinking more along the lines of 'hi I'm Felicity Smoak, I come here every night because I am Tommy's stalker so he decided to give me a VIP table."

"How is being your stalker any better than them thinking I am a drunken floozy?" Felicity asked

"For one thing is more believable and for another, if you are only here because of me you won't exactly be sleeping around with other guys so the won't think of you as a floozy."

"Just a deranged _probably still an alcoholic_ stalker."

x.x

Laurel had walked into Verdant hoping to surprise Tommy before she left town for a spa weekend with Thea, after everything that's been happening lately they both needed time away from Starling even if it was just for a few hours.

Verdant wouldn't be opened till later on in the evening so she had a few hours to _play_ with before Tommy got back to managing the club, instead of the club being empty like she expects she found Tommy making a drink for a blonde woman at the bar.

"Are you are **sure **this has no alcohol in it."

"Yes Felicity no alcohol in there" Tommy promised sliding the virgin mojito across, they had all quickly learnt what a bad idea it was for Felicity to get drunk and hack, according to Diggle Felicity had decided to hack into Big Belly Burger and place an online order for a thousand burgers since she was feeling peckish and had started to hack into the traffic system to turn all the light green so the driver would be able to reach Verdant in record time, it was only by the grace of God and Diggle's quick reflexes that prevented what would have probably been the story of the week.

"So guess else what happened today at work, my supervisor ask me to help make a new type of firewall for QC, well he asked me to update the old one but I think it's better if I just create a completely new system and show everyone what I can do you know." Felicity shrugged.

"Maybe I've never exactly had a boss before so I don't know if he will appreciate you- hi Laurel" Tommy beamed spotting his girlfriend as she walked closer. "Come to surprise me."

"Yeah I didn't expect you to have company," Laurel said leaning in for a kiss.

"Laurel Lance meet Felicity Smoak, Felicity meet Lau-"

"Dinah Laurel Lance aka Laurel Lance the city's newest ADA she has this big case against David Krane for weapons smuggling and her-"

"Felicity" Tommy interrupted before she babbled something that got Laurel a little too curious or got Felicity arrested.

"Sorry" Felicity blushed, "I meant to say hi nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too. So how do you two know each other." Laurel questioned she didn't want to come off as the jealous girlfriend but with her past and with Tommy and Felicity being the only two here she couldn't help but get suspicious.

"Oh, she's a stalker" Tommy stated enjoying the surprised look on Laurel's face and the blush crawling up Felicity's neck.

"Tommy, I'm not I promise you." Felicity hurried to reassure Laurel she could tell she was already weary of Felicity being there. "You do know she is an ADA she can have me arrested."

"Don't worry babe, she is a nice stalker, the nicest one I have ever had, she even comes by to tell me about her week and everything." Tommy continued while pouring the last of the virgin mojito into another glass for Laurel.

"I'm not a stalker, I swear if you get me arrested I am going to hack into your…" Felicity found she couldn't finish her threat, not with Laurel standing there "… watermelon." she finished lamely closing her eyes in embarrassment as Tommy burst out laughing.

"My watermelon, really?" he gasped, he was doubled over in laughter clutching the bar for support.

Of all the things he thought she would say _this_ wasn't one of it.

This was so God damn embarrassing if Laurel didn't think of her as a stalker before she was certainly thinking she was a nut job. "I'll going to go now, nice meeting you Laurel," Felicity mumbled sliding of the barstool.

"I'm sorry.. wait wait" Tommy pleaded wiping away the tears off his face. "Felicity here is one of the best computer specialists in town, I hired her to create a firewall for the computer upstairs and to make sure that the cameras in this place couldn't be hacked into. She also happens to work for QC during the day." Tommy spieled out hoping it would convince Felicity to stay.

"You forgot MIT" she replied huffily going back to take her seat.

"Not only did she graduate summa cum laude from MIT she is also one of the most forgiving person I know who wouldn't hold a bad joke against me especially since I'm going to make her so many mojitos that she gets sick of them."

Tommy really hoped he hadn't offended Felicity with his joke, he had just been trying to make Laurel feel comfortable with finding him and Felicity here alone especially after everything Ollie put her through, she was still learning to trust Tommy and to believe that he was a different person now.

"Okay, so she's a friend" Laurel clarified after watching the whole scene.

"A good and forgiving friend."

"You know you could have just said that" both Laurel and Felicity stated at the exact same time.

"Sorry I should have," Tommy admitted.

"Thanks for the drink but I have a Firefly marathon line up at home to get to," Felicity said but her eyes quickly moved towards the door that leads to the Arrow cave so she hoped Tommy knew that she would be downstairs if he wanted her to come back once Laurel left.

"Felicity you don't need to go I-"

"Seriously Firefly marathon. Of course, I do." Felicity scoffed rolling her eyes because if there was one actually planned she wouldn't have even left the house today. "You just need to work on your jokes maybe try some knock knock ones first and I will say it's nice meeting you Laurel but I think I said that before twice, not that it's **not** nice to meet you cause it is. It's just it will feel really redundant to say it again and the fact that I just used a double negative in a sentence means. Actually, it means nothing I use double negatives all the time and I really shouldn't because it confuses people…. Three, two, one. Good luck with your case ADA." Felicity smiled focusing on Laurel because she already knew Tommy was laughing at her, maybe not out loud but his eyes were all lit up and he was barely stopping himself from cackling.

x.x.x.x

Neither Tommy or Laurel said a word watching as Felicity left, Tommy guessed she was using the back entrance to get downstairs instead of going through the club. "So as much as I love seeing you try to figure out half the things Felicity said I'm sure you didn't come here for that." Tommy pointed out taking a sip of the mojito he had just given Laurel seeing as she hadn't touched it. "Have some there's no alcohol in there."

"Yeah right, I just.." Laurel wanted to probe some more about this Felicity person like if she was here to fix computers why did she and Tommy know so much about each other, how did they become friends, why was Tommy making her drinks in the middle of the afternoon or better yet was that bumbling awkwardness real or was it just an affectation she made up to get Tommy to trust her before she made her move and slept with him.

Instead of asking any of those questions Laurel decided to finish the drink in one gulp. "Sorry I got thirsty, I just came to remind you that I won't be here for the weekend, Thea really needs time away from Starling so we've booked a spa weekend."

"That's awesome but if you wanted someone to rub you down you didn't need to go all the way out of town for that." Tommy grinned pulling Laurel closer, did he mention how lucky he was to have such a smart kick-ass girlfriend who basically had a heart of gold.

"Thanks for that offer but I would prefer my Swedish masseuse."

"If you insist but now I have to find someone willing to be a buffer for my annual 'I am disappointed in you son' with Malcolm" Tommy joked deepening his voice to that snooty one his dad has.

"I'm sure Ollie will go with you if you asked."

"Good thing I am not asking because he's not coming with me," Tommy replied back sharper than he meant to.

"Okay, what's going on with you two for weeks now you haven't spoken to him or gone out together."

"We had a fight."

"About?" Laurel prompted.

"Something I don't want to talk about. Don't you have a spa weekend to get to." Tommy deflected

"Tommy."

"Drop it, Laurel, I really don't want to talk about it" _because if I did then you and your dad will be arresting Oliver, Felicity and Diggle for being a vigilante and killing people_.

"Okay then, I guess I will see you when I get back," Laurel stated trying not to let Tommy snappish behaviour get to her.

"Sure thing I will be waiting with roses and wine." He promised.

"Please don't" Laurel chuckled, she was sure Tommy was only half serious but if he every thought she wanted that he would fill her apartment with it, well the old rich kid definitely would have but the new tamer Tommy who had to _work_ for a living might stop at a bouquet or two.

x.x.x.x

"So how bad was that," Felicity asked hearing Tommy coming down the stairs.

"How bad was what?" Oliver asked confused.

"Sorry, I thought you were Tommy" Felicity watched as a range of emotions flashed across Oliver's face whatever he wanted to say it was obvious he was holding back.

"So the two of you still hang out?"

"I guess, I mean we talk and he makes me cocktails and I help him set up the club and now that I am saying it shouldn't it be you? I mean you are technically the owner of the club and yeah it might be to hide all the kill, kill, stab, stab thing but it is your club and…. Three, two, one."

"Why don't we start this again" Oliver offered. "Hey, Felicity did you manage to track the weapon shipment."

"No but I've got you the next best thing, the man who can give you the location of said shipment, his name is Wang Wei" Felicity span around pulling up the all the information she had gathered onto the screen. "Annoyingly Wang Wei is like the second most popular Chinese name so it took me a while to narrow it down, but according to the SCPD this Wang Wei is an American born Chinese national who lives and works in the Glades nicked named the American Dragon and yes I did think of the tv show as soon as I read that. Moving on, according to his Instagram page you can find him in right here in Verdant in about three hours" Felicity finished. "I know right how lucky is that, he is practically coming to you."

"No not lucky Felicity." Oliver sighed glaring at the screen. "The Hood can't just show up here not with Lance still thinking I am the vigilante plus there will be tons of people here tonight. Too many to protect."

"Well I don't know what you want me to say, wait till he leaves here and follow him home."

"Let me know the moment he leaves his house, I have to get home and change into something more casual," Oliver stated walking back out, through the back entrance.

"Of course, sure. No problem, glad I could be of help." Felicity called out into the empty room. When she agreed to help Oliver until Walter got found she didn't think it involved spending her Friday night's by herself in the basement of a night club while he went partying under the guise of who knows what.

In fact, there should be no reason Oliver would need her tonight if he was going to be upstairs partying with Wang Wei and showing him a good time he should know exactly what time the man would call it quits and go home so the Hood could pay him a visit.

Tommy was right, she needed to enjoy her life a little, so before she could talk herself out of it Felicity sent a text to the group chat saying she was in apparently her dentist didn't mind pushing her appointment to another day after all and to make extra sure that she didn't chicken out Felicity went up and left a note on the bar asking Tommy to place her on the VIP list tonight, as well as scribbling down the other names of the girls from work.

_**x.x.x.x**_

_**writer's thought"**_

So what do you guy's think so far? Tommy and Felicity are getting friendly with each other and she has now officially met Laurel Lance and because of Tommy's suggestion, Felicity has decided to live a little.

Now, what will happen now that our dear Overwatch has decided to abandon her post and the drama has moved upstairs into the club?


	3. Clubbing

It had been a couple of months since Felicity had last gone out for drinks let alone gone out clubbing, working with Oliver has really perfected her ability to come up with a random excuse to blow people off which was unfair to everyone but mostly to herself and the friends she still had left.

It was both easier and harder to get ready than Felicity thought; once she got some music playing in the apartment and went into the back of her clothes she started remembering what to do and how to have fun, on the other hand she kept checking her tablet every five minutes because she had set an alert for Wei's licence plate so she would know as soon as he went past a traffic camera.

It was hard not doing Hood related vigilantism for the night, but being able to wear a black dress cut out she bought on impulse helped soothe and nerves she was feeling, it had looked great in the shops but now that she had her hair curled and make-up done she felt like a million dollars.

x.x.x.x

"Why are we lining up?" Sharon asked as Felicity joined the queue, seriously the line was actually down the block, if this was what happened every night the club must make a lot of money. "I thought you said you booked a VIP table"

"I did but-" but Felicity had never done the whole VIP thing she didn't know the rules.

"Okay then." Sharon had heard all she needed to, this was her chance to get closer to Tommy Merlyn and have the one night stand she always wished for. Grabbing Felicity's hands she dragged her to the front of the line, she assumed the other girls would follow. "Hi we are on the list under Felicity Smoak," Sharon said smiling at the bouncer

x.x.

The music was thumping so hard Felicity could feel her bones rattle but she was enjoying this, enjoying the music and the dancing and the drinks, she especially enjoyed the look on Oliver's face as she and everyone else had walked past into the VIP area, this was amazing.

A part of her felt guilty, not because of Wang Wei but because she knew Tommy and Verdant must be loosing out on a lot of money by giving her this table.

"Stop worrying." Tommy snuck up behind her to whisper into her ears causing Felicity to scream, luckily with the music being what it was no one heard her.

"What the hell Tommy are you trying to kill me?" Felicity gasped clutching her chest.

"I'm just making sure you have fun," Tommy stated pointing to the servers who had followed him and were placing multiple glasses of mojito's down on the centre table.

He wasn't sure what Felicity favourite drink was but since she kept requesting mojitos every Friday that was what he opted to bring the table, that a bottle of champagne.

"Well I am, thank you for this," Felicity screamed back into his ears. How the hell did none of this bass thumping noise get through downstairs? The cave was only separated by a single door, maybe Oliver had thought ahead and made the cave sound proof.

"You're welcome now introduce me to your friends cause they are waiting. including onion breath." Tommy casually nodded to the people standing behind Felicity, they had all stopped giggling and looking around once he came to the VIP Area.

"Tommy Merlyn, this is the girls from work, girls this is Tommy"

"Nice to meet you" Sharon giggled twirling her hair. Seriously everyone knew Tommy was with Laurel, it was all over the tabloids.

The gossip columns couldn't get enough of it talking about how Oliver had come back only to find Laurel and Tommy in a relationship; it was Starling's very own Shakespearean drama, all that was needed was for Laurel to sleep with Oliver and get pregnant.

"Do you two know each other?" Sharon asked her brows furrowed studying the way Tommy and Felicity were with each other.

"Felicity here knows my friend _Pedro._" Tommy grinned ignoring the glares coming his way from the petite blonde by his side."Just kidding she's been coming here to help me set up a firewall for the computer upstairs and the cameras here." Tommy screamed back. "She did such an amazing job that thought she should get to see the other side of Verdant."

"She can't do that she has a non-compete." Onion breath sneered snootily as if he had just caught Felicity embezzling or something.

In just one sentence the man had already pissed Tommy off who the fuck thinks about work while in a club let alone their employment contract and why the fuck did anyone invite someone like him on a night out.

"Don't worry Aaron I didn't break my non-compete, I just helped a friend set up his computer and explained _why_ he should get a firewall. Didn't even get paid" and as long as she didn't get paid, which she hadn't because she never actually did anything when she was in the all clear, plus she was pretty sure her lawyers could argue that clubbing and what Queen Consolidated do couldn't even be considered to be competitors in any way shape or form.

"Why are we even talking about this?" Sharon asked shooting a look to Aaron the guy was such a dick when it came to Felicity, well when it came to _any_ of the girls in the department, but Felicity had it the worse mostly because she was and could code circles around him while looking like sunshine and rainbows.

"If he's giving you a VIP table for computer work that's a form of payment." Aaron pointed out, he hadn't missed the way Felicity lit up when she saw Tommy nor the way the man had clearly checked her out before coming past the ropes.

"The table isn't payment. I thought Felicity should be the first to enjoy the VIP treatment before I roll it out to other QC employees, they will even be a monthly raffle to pick out the winner once I have all the details ironed out" Tommy bull-shited staring down Onion breath, he would love for the man to say something else. "Enjoy your evening _girls_, if you need anything to let one of the servers know" Tommy chose to say. Felicity was a grown woman who could handle herself.

"If you need me to kick him out just say the word" Tommy paused to whisper to Felicity before ducking out to greet the next group who had booked a VIP table.

x.x.x.x

Oliver's eye tracked Felicity from the moment she walked in and kept track on her all through the night even after Wang Wei had walked in Felicity still dividing his attention.

At first he thought she was here to try and help him out go undercover like he was, get close to Wang Wei or something but that wasn't the case, instead, she just walked on past into the VIP section and had started drinking and clubbing like everyone else.

She wasn't here for him, Wang Wei or the mission she was here to have fun and that surprised him, for some reason he thought Felicity idea of fun would be a night in hacking or watching tv not taking shots and dancing with random strangers wearing something that belonged in a burlesque show.

It didn't escape Oliver that even his date's dress didn't provoke such a strong reaction out of him that being said he will still end up spending the night with Natasha.

"Hey, man enjoying the party?" Tommy came in grinning clapping Oliver on the back putting on a production for everyone else at the table. "Whose's your date for this evening," he said winking at Natasha.

"This is Natasha, Nat Tommy Meryln"

"Nice to meet you, Tommy, it's Natalie by the way" the girl politely corrected, she didn't care that Oliver didn't know her name she would have been surprised if he had.

"Good ole' Ollie still has the brain of a sieve when it comes to names, nice to see you. I'm just making the rounds if you need anything else please let the waiters know. Ollie" Tommy nodded.

"Hey, Tommy I've got a shot with your name on it" Jack screamed across the table lifting what Tommy assumed was Vodka in his direction.

"Got one more Table to visit and a blonde bombshell to dance with before I get back here" Tommy stated vaguely closely watching Oliver's reaction …. and _there_ it was that **_split second_** look that promised murder before he schooled his face into a bored expression.

"Is Merlyn stepping out?" Jack asked more than half drunk. "Good for you man"

"Not on your life, I promised Julia a dance" Tommy chuckled, it won't be that of a deal if word got around about Tommy and Julia dancing, for one thing, they did it Friday night and for another Julia had a wife and wouldn't even think about ruining her marriage.

x.x

Felicity was in the middle of the dance from with Phillip Days, he smelt nice, could really dance and didn't have onion breath, plus the quick internet search she did showed he worked at StarBank, he wasn't married or had any girlfriends somewhere waiting to scratch her eyes out so she why not give him a chance to woo her for the night or two now that she had his number saved in her contacts.

It was one am and she was still out partying considered it a success until she spun around and bumped into Wang Wei himself feeling something decidedly **_solid_** pressing back against her through his pants, now the man didn't look happy to see her because he didn't know her so that must mean the weapons smuggler had smuggled a gun into Verdant.

"Ahhh sorry Mr…" Nope, she couldn't know his name because why would a random girl at the club know the name of one of Starling city's biggest weapon smuggler. "I'm just a little drunk going to go get some water." Felicity made her excuse escaping as quickly as possible, she needed to find Oliver or Tommy or Oliver and Tommy.

Didn't Oliver say he would be keeping an eye out on him so where was he and how hadn't he noticed the gun hidden under the jacket?

As Felicity turned around for a quick second to double check which way Wei was headed she found him in deep shouty conversation with Phillip, the same Phillip she had spent half an hour dancing with along with some other mouth related stuff.

Okay she could now see why Oliver was against the idea of anything going down at Verdant there were way too many people on the actual dance floor.

x.x.x.x

After asking Emma -the nice bartender who sometimes came in to help Tommy set-up- where Tommy was Felicity headed upstairs into the office.

"Okay I know you feel a certain type of way about the hood but you need to get over it," Felicity ordered. "The Chinese man in the VIP booth by the fire exist is Wang Wei a serious weapons smuggler and he has a gun here and I am going to need you to go get Oliver because if he starts shooting then a lot of people die."

"Wait what?"

"Tommy go get Oliver, tell him to meet me downstairs."

x.x

Felicity barley had to wait for five minutes before Oliver and Tommy came striding in through the back entrance wanting to know what was going on.

For a split second her brain short-circuited seeing the two men walking together like that, they were like runway models Tommy's look of concern was such a contrast with Oliver's dark and stormy look, it was a **_very attractive_** image which she would save and explore later when you know there wasn't a weapon smuggler with a gun in a nightclub full of drunk people.

"Wang Wei is upstairs and he has a gun, oh and he is still talking to the guy I was dancing with," Felicity stated having hacked into Verdant's cameras and re-directing the feed to monitor said meeting.

"Where is he?" Oliver growled coming to stand behind Felicity.

"Are you okay?" Tommy asked, Felicity, looked slightly panicked and was clearly a little out of breath having been running around in heels, her face was still a little flushed.

"I… I'm not sure. Feeling the gun definitely sobered me up."

"You felt or you saw the gun?" Oliver questioned still taking a sharp tone when speaking.

"I felt the gun, I was dancing and I bumped into him and I don't think he was happy to see me, he could be because this dress is **wow**. I got so many people flirting and trying to buy me drinks and …. That's not the point," Felicity said shaking her head. "I bumped into him and I felt something pressed against me and even if he's-"

"How did he get a gun pass the bouncer?" Tommy asked interrupting Felicity.

"More importantly _why_ is he bringing a gun to a night club, I mean unless he knows something we don't… Oh God he knows something we don't. We need to get everyone out of here, also who conduct business in a night club but it is kinda ingenious in an evil way, it busy too many witness so you can't just kill the guy across the table from you if you don't like what they are saying plus if one of them is wearing a wire there is no way it can pick up the conversation and-"

"This! This is exactly why I asked you to keep an eye on him"

"Hey easy up on her." Tommy grabbed Oliver arm, Oliver may not realise it but he was literally looming over Felicity whilst angry. "It's not her fault that he has a gun and before you get on that high horse of your's remember I found you on the way to the staff room with Natalie."

Felicity appreciated Tommy but she didn't need him for this one. "Okay first of all you didn't ask me to do anything you **demanded** that I track Wang Wei for you while you go home and get changed to come out clubbing, this isn't _Cinderella_ you don't get to go to the ball while I'm stuck in the dungeon waiting for your return, my life doesn't revolve around you. If catching Wang Wei was so important to you then you should have come as the Hood, you have all the information you need to ambush him because _I gave them to you._"

x.x.x.x

As soon as Oliver stormed back out Felicity just collapsed back into her chair, all that running, arguing and panicking had really drained her. "I just wanted to take a night off and now someone is in your club with a gun and there are hundreds of potential hostages and victims." She quietly admitted staring at the solid oak door Oliver just left through.

"Felicity this isn't your fault, that guy has been coming to Verdant for nearly a month now." Tommy walked over to the computer leaning against the table so he could see her.

"Yeah but if I stayed here like Oliver asked I could have found something or I would be able to track him when he leaves. Something bad is going to happen, I can feel it."

"Why do you do this? Why spend the night tracking bad guys and gathering all this information up." It was a genuine question Tommy. Why would someone as bubbly and positive as Felicity spend her nights working for Oliver, helping him kill people. "You can just call the cops, tell them about Wei."

"The police can't do anything about it. They have a file as thick as a phone book on Wei and they closest they've come to arresting him was when a traffic warden wrote him a speeding ticket, I will give you three guesses what happen to that guy the next day the words '_brain dead'_ is involved. People are either too scared to go after the actual bad guys or they don't even know who the actual bad guys are and the ones that do are already on the bad guy's pay role, someone needs to try and keep the city safe and even if I don't agree with his method Oliver is doing just that, he's keeping Starling safe and I am helping…. Or I was helping before I talked myself out of a job."

"Even Ollie isn't dumb enough to let you go so I won't worry too much about that and if you aren't too tired and you want to, I could really use your help in figuring out how he got the gun into the club because if he can do it I'm willing to bet so can anyone else. Once that's done I know a really good twenty-four hour cafe down the road that make really good coffee or I could drive you home after."

"Thanks Tommy. You know the irony is now everyone still think I am an alcoholic floozy right, I just up and disappeared on them."


	4. Morning after

Sometime after the club closed, Tommy also called an end to the night and forced Felicity to shut down the computer so he could drive her home, Oliver hadn't been back for over three hours it was nearing five in the morning and Felicity was obsessively staring at her screen hoping the answers would jump out at her; the exact thing he wanted to avoid tonight, Felicity stuck in the cave with Oliver playing Hood but he understood why… kind of.

At least she had come out for the night and had fun for a few hours before Wang Wei the American Dragon weapon smuggler crushed into her life with his gun and stuff, even thinking that sentence made Tommy's brain hurt.

On the bright side they had stopped at the cafe for breakfast so all Tommy had to do once he got home was shower, sleep and send a text to Laurel making sure she and Thea had gotten to the spa in one piece.

x.x

A bleary eyed Tommy found himself back in the lair within eight hours of leaving it carrying a chicken sandwich and a caramel latte for Felicity, he was being way too nice to the woman who had taken upon herself to hack his phone and the alarm making as much noise as she could with all the tech in his apartment because he was too busy sleeping while she was calling him.

The only plus side to having woken up to his tv, radio, microwave, phone and Roomba all going off at the exact same time was the fact that Felicity had also turned on his coffee machine and had his bath running, if there was ever any doubt about Felicity's ability to 'hack his life' this morning's fiasco erased all of that, ever high end piece of tech he own at the apartment that could make a noise all went off.

Tommy wasn't going to think about the invasion of privacy or the fact that she was being a little _manic _and just chalk it up to the after effects of her running into 'the American dragon' whilst he had a gun, also he could tell from the insane amount of red bull cans scattered around the floor behind her that Felicity had not slept.

She probably hadn't even stayed at home long enough to do anything more than shower and change clothes.

"Let's play a round of good news- bad news." Felicity stated as soon as she saw Tommy approaching. "Good news I found out how Wang got the gun into the club, bad news he been bribing one particular bouncer for the last five weeks the bouncer has suddenly been getting a five thousand dollar deposit into his bank account every Friday night. Also he (the bouncer) disconnected the alarm on the fire exist but I am sure it's because Wang paid him to, I've reconnected it for you because you never know when you have a surprise inspection from the city's inspectors, they could shut you down or even send you to jail if like a fire broke out or something not that a fire should break out but then again there shouldn't have been a gun in the club and your security shouldn't be on the take so…."

"Morning Felicity." Tommy greeted pulling up the spare seat next to her and placing the sandwich within arm's reach.

It was a statement to how tired Felicity was that she didn't tell him off about bringing food near her keyboard as she just dove in and stating eating.

"Thank you I'm starving" she mumbled around a mouth full of sandwich before swallowing. "Good news is you can always hire another bouncer, they are loads of people in the glades looking for work, maybe hire a woman."

"Cause women don't commit crimes or?" Tommy asked trying to figure out Felicity's reasons along with finding a way to get her to sleep.

"Don't be sexist women can commit any crime a man can." Felicity replied throwing a small glare at Tommy's direction."What I _meant_ was as much as I love your bouncers it will be better if you offered you female clientele the option of getting rubbed down by a woman … three, two, one."

Tommy could have easily made a joke about Felicity's sexuality with that statement and he really wanted to but he figured he had made enough fun of her in the past two days and she was too sleep deprived to be made fun of. Had Tommy mentioned how sleep deprived Felicity looked cause she was barely hanging on. "Not a bad idea"

"And if you like I can keep an eye on the cameras upstairs for you or look into the accounts of anyone you hire make sure that all their sources of income is legal."

"Thanks for the offer but don't go breaking the law on my account."

"Oh it's no bother, it will take me three minutes if I am properly motivated to breach a bank's firewall" Felicity replied missing the point, it wasn't that Tommy didn't think she could do it he just didn't want her to commit a crime and he didn't want her to stay awake for a second longer than she had to.

"You are really good at this" He replied instead taking a bite of his BLT. "Have you slept at all?" He finally asked broaching the subject.

"I think I got an hour around … not sure what time but the computer was doing it's thing and I was just waiting to the results… _for_ the results."

x.x.x.x

"Hey Felicity" Diggle greeted as he came down from the club."Tommy, good to see you down here for a change." If Diggle was surprised to see him inside the foundry his face didn't show it, instead he took it in stride as if Tommy could usually be found spending his weekends there.

"Hey Diggle" Felicity turned upon hearing Diggle greeting offering him a smile, her eyes trailed a little further up over Diggle shoulder to watch as Oliver came down or to be more accurate the Hood came down the stairs bow in hand and everything.

"Carly was asking about you last night said she has an idea for a new pie and wanted to know if you are still up for being her guinea pig"

"Sure. Free food how can I say no." Felicity shrugged.

"So what did I miss and are you guys _still_ running a mission from last night?" Diggle asked taking in the sleep deprived state Felicity was in and the fact that Oliver was just coming back in as The Hood.

Tommy, Felicity and Oliver all paused to shoot silent but not so subtle looks at each other before Felicity began speaking, "Well I didn't find the weapons but I found the guy who was smuggling it and coincidentally he loves coming to Verdant on Friday night and Oliver learnt a lesson in the correct way to ask for something." Felicity summarised shooting a smile over to the leather clad guy frowning in the corner.

Diggle let the tense moment sit for a few more seconds, he was sure that whatever it was, Oliver definitely deserved Felicity's ire. "Wait there was nothing on the news about the Hood being at the club last night."

"The Hood wasn't, _Oliver Queen_ was. The Hood visited Wei after he left the club" Oliver stated staring at the way Tommy and Felicity were sat next to each other, he was trying to figure out why Tommy was down here, he understood why Tommy decided to follow him yesterday there was a man with a gun in the club but why was he here today.

"And how did that go?" Diggle questioned refocusing Oliver's attention.

"Mr Wei had a… run in with the pointy end of some of my arrows, so we still don't know why he smuggled in such a large amount of guns or who hired him."

"So we have no leads?" Diggle clarified, maybe he should have been here yesterday, a lot seemed to have gone on.

"I won't exactly say that." Turning around facing the computer once more to pull up all the information she pulled during the early hours of this morning "We have one Phillip Days who works in StarBank by day and at night is the money guy for criminals, there are several offshore accounts in his name and the IRS should have really picked up on the fact that he is living beyond his means with all those unexplained income. I mean you look at him you wouldn't think he was involved I know I didn't, in fact I spent the better part of an hour making out with him." Felicity cringed.

"Do you have his address?" Oliver addressed Felicity directly for the first time since last night. "**Please.**" he finished mulishly still haven't forgotten the dressing down she gave him.

"Phillips Days address? Of course I do, would you like for me to send it to your Hood phone?" Felicity asked with a hint of false pleasantries, showing that she was still upset about the way Oliver spoke to her.

"_Thank you_." Oliver replied hearing the text alert on the burner go off, he wanted to get out of there, maybe pay Phillip a visit before finally going home to rest.

"Wait." Tommy interrupted watching as Oliver walked towards the wooden crate he had placed his bow in a few minutes ago. "You've already killed this weapons smuggler if Phillip's the only lead you have left do you think it's such a good idea for '_you'_ to go see him" he said waving at the Hood get up Oliver was still in.

"Fine I will set up a meeting at StarBank." Oliver offered he didn't care how it was done, Phillip Days was going to be tell him what he needed to know one way or the other.

Diggle hated to rain on Oliver's parade but he saw an obvious problem to the plan, namely Oliver Queen being Oliver **_Queen.  
_**"Yeah that not going to work man. If Oliver _Queen_ is asking for a meeting at the bank they are not going to send some middle management guy to take it, you are going to get the bank president and the red carpet treatment." Diggle chimed in, he had seen it enough times, where ever Oliver went he was treated like the prodigal son returned.

"Then if I can't go see him as the Hood" Oliver started looking at Tommy "and I can't go see him as Oliver Queen." this time he turned to look at Diggle. "How _exactly_ do you expect us to figure out what's going on, if I can't approach the target?" Oliver threw out to the two men.

"I can go see him. I may not be the Hood but I can get him to spill what he knows."

"Okay I can't believe I going to suggest this… especially seeing as she needs her bed before anything but why don't you let _Felicity_ try?" Tommy hesitantly asked aware he was sat next to her, meaning she had very easy access to pummel him.

"Sure whilst we are at it why don't I find the solution to global warming" Felicity snapped, she was still in the middle of running a deep dive into everyone Tommy had working at the club last night; she had gone into the murky past of at least thirty people that was employed at Verdant and so far everyone was clean.

The last of her programme was still going so she wasn't ruling anyone out; not even the nice cleaning lady who had lined up all the lost property from last night and placed them on the bar, people really did lose a lot of things when drunk but the fact that someone happened to '_loose_' their underwear was something Felicity and the cleaning lady didn't need to know about this morning.

"Think about it. He won't be expecting the girl he was dancing with last night to be an undercover spy. If Diggle goes around asking question he just going to tell his employer and they will change the plans or just kill this guy."

Tommy really shouldn't be advocating for Felicity to approach Phillip but reading between some of her words this morning he felt like she needed this, she needed to deal the consequences of her '_poor judgement_' her words not his. Maybe confronting Phillip and bringing down the weapon trade would help her deal with last night, or maybe Tommy was over-stepping and Felicity just needed sleep.

"I don't know if you know me but I am not exactly the scary one here. There's no way I can get him to tell me what's going on and my loud voice isn't all that scary to people involved in the crime world"

"I'm not sure about that, you loud voice could have men running, I still don't touch any burger before you call dibs." Dig teased remember the time he had taken Felicity to Big Belly after a long day's work at QC where she use her loud voice on him since he reached for one of the five burgers he had ordered for the table before she could make a decision on which burger to eat first.

"That food, I get scary when it comes to food." Felicity waved off with a small smile on her face she could tell Tommy was curious to know what Diggle was talking about but she cut him off with a promise to tell him about it later, they were in the middle of brain storming and the last idea was that _she_ should be the one to do the field work.

"You have his number why don't you send him a worm or something and pull the info from his phone, you don't even have to see him." Tommy stated, with Felicity's ability she wouldn't even need to leave this place to take Phillip down.

"Because it doesn't work that way." Felicity replied rolling her eyes. "You see that types of things in movie way too much something as large as a worm can't fit into a text maybe his email…. Plus it will be better if I had his phone near by… we could clone it, see all incoming calls and text figure out who else is involved." she admitted reluctantly. "I could even infect the phone directly make it patient zero and have it infect his other devices"

"So then text him and see if he wants to meet up for coffee, I'm sure you can clone his phone then."

"How long will it take for you to clone his phone?" Oliver could admit that Tommy was right, with Wang Wei dead, the entire weapons operation would be looking for anything suspicious, they couldn't go poking around anymore without causing the whole operation to go underground and they will never find out why someone ship over two thousand hand guns into Starling. What were they planning, who were they arming?

"Maybe twenty minutes but I still think is a bad idea. What do I say to him '_hi can you give me all the info on your criminal friends and while you are at it do you know anything about a bunch of guns being shipped?_' oh and does anyone realise that Days may not even know anything about the guns, he deals with the money I doubt they invite him for dinner and tell them their plans."

"Felicity" Oliver warned not wanting to hear what she had to say next.

"What, I'm just saying the _one_ person we know who actually had the information about why and who shipped the weapon is now dead and Philip may not even have the information you want, I know I don't tell my accountant why-"

"_Felicity_" Oliver huffed in that growly voice of his.

"She's got a point Oliver." Diggle defended, the statement may not be appreciated but that didn't means she was wrong. They may have hit a dead end with Oliver killing this Wang Wei guy. "But on the off chance that he _does _know something it won't hurt to meet him and clone his phone just send a text you have nothing to worry about as far as he know this someone he met last night reaching out to him."

"Okay I can do this, be flirtatious, be non threatening and non spy like" Felicity said pumping herself up to send a text digging her phone out of her bag.

"You seemed find with him on the dance floor why don't you try that" Tommy suggested.

"Because I was half drunk and I now know he is involved or at least knows a weapon smuggler." Felicity pointed out. "Okay how does _hi_ sound?"

"That's it, Hi." Tommy questioned sharing a quick look of disbelieve with Diggle, Tommy really hope it was the lack of sleep causing it, sleep deprived Felicity was really entertaining, he couldn't wait to remind her that she thought _Hi_ was being flirty.

"Yeah, it non-threatening very breezy" Felicity pointed out. Hi was good, everyone said hi. Hi was non-suspicious…. Hi funny how it sounded like _high. _Did other people realise this hi… _high, hi high_

"It's not exactly flirtatious and he's just going to ignore the message." Tommy said snapping Felicity out of her inner ramble, she might need another energy drink or maybe a cup of coffee before her _I-am-here-to-clone-your-phone-because-you-are-secretly-a-bad-guy _coffee date.

"How about, 'hi it's Felicity from last night'"

"You could try that…."

"What wrong with that?" Felicity questioned not seeing the problem. If she was a guy she would reply back to that.

"Still not flirtatious enough." Oliver reluctantly pointed out while Tommy nodded his head.

"Do you have a picture in that dress from last night?" Tommy asked, Felicity heisted in nodding, she didn't like where this was going. "Then text that to him"

"Seriously?"

"Trust me he see's a picture of you in that dress and he will be calling you within the hour"

"She is trying to set a meeting in a neutral place not see what colour his bedroom walls are painted." Felicity sat quietly blushing at the implication while Tommy and Oliver began their pissing contest."She just needs to clone his phone."

"And I am telling you once he gets a reminder of what she looks like in that dress he will practically sign away his life savings, he was already salivating over her yesterday and if he thinks she is interested…"

"That isn't the objective of the mission."

"The _objective_" Tommy mocked. "Is to get her close to him **_and_** keep him distracted enough that she can do her computer magic. Are _you _trying to tell me if Felicity sent _you_ that picture before asking to meet you that you could actually think of anything else apart from the way she looks in it." Tommy needled, he'd seen the look on Oliver's face last night as Felicity walked past, then again when she started dancing.

Every single time Felicity got hit on by someone, didn't matter if they were boy or girl Oliver got that murder look on his face like he was about to start punching people.

For Tommy last night had answered all the question he had about _why_ Oliver kept Felicity around and whether he would admit it or not, a part of Oliver was interested in Felicity.

"Okay maybe **_you_** might not" Tommy pretended to give up. "But I and any of the other guys in the club last night looked and I am saying this as someone who is happily in a relationship. Send the picture, it doesn't even have to be the whole dress just a selfie would be enough."

Felicity was just going to skate on pass Tommy's admission to checking her out because as he pointed out he was in a committed relationship plus he was probably saying this to get his point across even with all the compliment he had just given her a part of her felt sad because in one night even Tommy could tell Oliver wasn't interested in her.

"If anyone wants my opinion" Diggle began calling attention to himself. "I think Felicity might be the best option, cloning the phone can lead us to someone who actually knows what's going on. We can set it up for tomorrow or tonight _after _Felicity has gotten some sleep"

"I'm find I can-"

"Felicity you are not _fine," _Diggle corrected wondering just how may hours Felicity had gone without sleep, they had all spent Thursday night looking for the smuggled shipment in the Glades so if she spent yesterday tracking Wang Wei then the last time Felicity had a proper night's rest was on Wednesday night. He needed to have a word with her about her work-life- vigilante balance.  
_"_There's five different energy drink on the floor, you won't be running this mission sleep deprived and we need time to set up surveillance and scout some things out"

"Are you making things up?" Felicity asked squinting at Diggle, the fluorescent light were starting to hurt her eyes.

"Yeah you definitely need to sleep, come on, I'll drive you home, make sure you actually stay there."

"Are you guys even playboys when Diggle is the one taking me to bed?" the words slipped out of Felicity's mouth before her brain even registered the innuendo, there was that split second where everyone paused letting her words settle in right before Tommy lost all control and burst out laughing.

"Please tell me you guys have cameras down here, there has to be a record of this." Tommy gasped watching as Felicity blushed.

It was really amazing the things Felicity came out with in any other situation but sleep deprived Smoak was something else, her words were quick to leave her mouth but she was slow to react to their meaning.


	5. Why don't you join us

Laurel and Thea had agreed to make the most of their spa weekend starting with getting up early for a sunrise massage by the beach on both days.

Thea was even more determined to get as much fun and relaxation as she could in the last few hours before heading back home to the manor with her depressed mum, equally depressed and distant brother. "How's Tommy?" Thea asked watching as Laurel replied back to his messages. "He hasn't really been around lately."

"Good, he's busy at Verdant even hired a computer specialist for the club."

"Who would have thought Tommy Merlyn would have a regular nine to five?"

"The wrong nine to five but yeah, I think Malcolm cutting Tommy off was the best thing he ever did, Tommy's grown so much in just a few weeks, he has his own apartment, a job, he even convinced me to apply to the D.A department."

"Isn't today Malcolm's annual thing with Tommy."

"It's is," Laurel sighed knowing all the drama Malcolm could cause to Tommy in five minutes let alone having a day to hone in on Tommy's weaknesses. "I'm worried he's going to go by himself because he doesn't want to ask Oliver since they've fallen out over something."

"Is that why Tommy's stopped coming around, because of Ollie?" Thea questioned feeling hurt, why did Oliver's behaviour have to affect her.

"I guess so, I was going to talk to him about it on Friday but he was with a girl… Felicity Smoak, do you know her?

"No.. name doesn't ring a bell why?"

"She works for QC, thought you might have known her, she's the computer specialist Tommy hired for the club." Laurel would say it was a new low for her quizzing Thea about Tommy's friends but it wasn't, the _lowest_ was finding out Oliver had been cheating on her with Sara because they had both drowned at sea.

"Laure,l are you…. You know Tommy won't cheat right" Thea clarified, Tommy and Ollie may be best friend and Ollie had cheated all the time while dating Laurel but Tommy wasn't like that, he wouldn't do that to Laurel, not after everything they'd all been through, not after seeing the devastation Ollie caused.

"Yeah I know, Thea. I'm not worried about that," Laurel brushed off lying, she never had to question Tommy's loyalty before, not really, Tommy was always so open about where he was and who he was with that Laurel had never thought to be worried but seeing him yesterday talking to someone she didn't know, that he didn't tell her about it brought back memories, bad memories. "I just wanted to know how good she was at computers, the ones at the D.A department needs updating" Laurel finished grateful that being face down on the massage table offered her the opportunity to lie without Thea knowing.

"Oh okay, well I'm not sure how good she is but QC does usually try to headhunt the best when it comes to the IT department, Walter was talking about it once, something to do with keeping the company's secret safe" Thea explained before feeling sad at the mention of Walter's name, her kidnapped presumed dead step-father.

"That's great, maybe I can ask her for help, Tommy did say she graduated from MIT."

"QC has a very strict non-compete, I'm not sure if she can help you, I'm not even sure how she helped Tommy, maybe is favour… Feli-city… is she, does she, _babble a lot_?" Thea asked diplomatically, although she couldn't see Laurel's head had snapped up.

"Yeah, she does why?"

"I don't _know_ her **_but_** I think Walter does (did) he goes to her for help all the time, that's if we are talking about the same girl, Walter does/ did think she was very good at her job. I won't go poking and asking about how good she is, one whiff her freelancing and helping Tommy and mum and the legal department will be coming after the girl." Thea pointed out

x.x.x.x.

Felicity looked and felt a lot better today than she did yesterday, the messy bun, black jeans and shirt and had all been replaced by her usual dress, white with a hot pink belt and heels to match.

"Okay, so I've scouted the coffee shop where you are meeting Phillip at, it's in the middle of town and there are two ways of entering and exiting, everything on my end is complete, what about yours?" Diggle asked taking charge.

"Well the device is ready and I have all the comms set up. I've linked my phone to the channel cause I can't wear the Bluetooth device on the date, I could but it would be really rude and awkward to have that in my ear the whole time and he'll see and then I'll get-"

"The phone is a great idea" Diggle interrupted before Felicity managed to work herself up into a panic. "Just leave it on the table and we can hear everything he says"

"But I can't hear you what if you see a member of the Chinese mafia or a man with a gun or.."

"It is _still_ a phone Felicity, I can still call and text you on it." Diggle pointed out, Felicity was radiating nerves and Diggle had to find a way to get rid of them before they had to leave. "Now explain to me how this new system works, the meeting is in an hours time"

"An hour? That doesn't give me a lot of time to get ready." Felicity said frowning down at her dress, was white the correct colour to be wearing around coffee, one little slip and the dress would be ruined, maybe she should change into something else.

"This isn't a date." Oliver stated, at the same time Diggle said she "already looked amazing"

"But yes one hour" Diggle continued talking over the awkwardness "It gives you less time to panic. I can drop you off around the corner we can iron out any other details in the car." Diggle suggested while guiding Felicity over to her computer.

"But it's only a fifteen-minute drive" Felicity pouted.

"That gives you half an hour to explain or these new updates and gizmo you've made like what's the iPad for?"

"Okay the thing I am most excited about is the text function inside the app I've downloaded on all our devices including the iPad, it works with the comm, just open it up and we can listen to each other at any time and yeah blah, blah, blah invasion of privacy being able to hear what we are doing just by opening the app, I'll sort that out later. It's based on the same design as WhatsApp end to end encryption on all the devices"

What followed was a very detailed explanation of all the updates Felicity had made and her reasoning, how each comm could now be muted or how the volume could be controlled, the most important thing was as Diggle had suspected doing all the tech talk had erased her nerves and placed her in a more happy and relaxed mood.

x.x.x.x

Oliver had asked Diggle to provide on-site backup and protection for Felicity, while he stayed behind to support Tommy, being there for him with his meeting with Malcolm, may just being there might be the thing they needed to get their friendship back on track.

He waited the entire fifteen minutes listening to Diggle prep Felicity on general things about how to act and what her safe words were if she wanted to cut the date short, Diggle explained how the most important thing was to listen to her guts, if she thought something was off she should just get up and leave.

Oliver didn't head up to Tommy's office until Felicity had already spent a few minutes making small with Phillip.

"What are you doing here man?" Tommy asked confused staring at Oliver who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, the only thing that alerted him to Oliver's presence was the noise coming out of the iPad he was holding.

"I… Er… I thought you might want some company for the annual meeting with Malcolm" Oliver trying not to feel like he misstepped, before the island, Oliver had never missed one of these 'meetings'.

"What about Felicity?"

"Feli- Why would Felicity… is she going **_with_** you?" Oliver asked surprised that Tommy would invite Felicity to that. If they were lucky it was usually an hour-long event where Malcolm listed out what he thought was Tommy's flaws, it wasn't something Tommy would let a casual acquaintance to, a lot of things may have changed in five years but not that, but even if Tommy thought of Felicity as a friend even a good one he wouldn't have invited her not unless-

"I can already see that you are on the wrong track," Tommy said cutting Oliver's thought off, he may not know everything about Oliver but he was radiating confusion and uncertainty. "Why are you _here_, what about Felicity's date with the Phillips guy?"

"It's not a date, she's on a mission" Oliver shot out walking into the office.

"Semantics, why are you not helping her?" Tommy questioned.

"She has Diggle and today's is annual-"

"You can really be an idiot at times you know that." Tommy sighed barely surprising the urge to roll his eyes. "Instead of helping Felicity on her first every '_mission_' you've decided to sit next to me while Malcolm and I have dinner?"

"No, it-"

"Need I remind you that I have done this before, _multiple times_ whereas she hasn't."

"I thought maybe you might want some company…. I've always come."

It was something old Ollie would say; Tommy should say yes because he always said yes, the tone was different less pouty and cajole-y than the Oliver of five years ago but the words were the same, Tommy couldn't count how many times he had been talked into something because '_they always did it_', 'i_t's tradition Tommy, we _**_have_**_ to_'

"Thanks for the offer but _if_ I wanted your company I would have asked, anyways I'm still deciding on whether or not to go tonight." Tommy finished softening the blow.

Whatever Oliver was going to say next in his defence was cut short by the sound of a panicking Felicity coming through the iPad.

x.x

The fact that Phillip had **two** phones really irritated Felicity, she didn't know which was his crime phone and which one was his everyday phone because they both looked **_exactly_** alike, same make and model, same phone casing, same stickers on the back, he even had the same background on both phones.

How did he tell them apart, and should Felicity clone just one, it was a fifty-fifty chance of getting the right one.

"Guys, I'm asking what to do, which phone do I clone?" Felicity hissed into her phone, she was currently in the ladies with the door locked speaking to Oliver and Diggle through the various comms. Oliver may not be in the coffee shop with them but from what her phone was telling her he was listening in on a third line.

"Repeat that," Oliver asked having unmuted his part of the comms and increased the volume for her (and Diggle) on the iPad.

"I said Phillip has two phones what do I do?"

"Can't you clone both?" Oliver asked.

Felicity was half tempted to come out with a sarcastic remark but realised they didn't have time for that, this really couldn't dissolve into bickering. "No I can't, not enough space on the device and that's not how _cloning_ works you can't clone one thing and start cloning another in the same device, it will corrupt everything."

"Pick one," Diggle stated, he was still sat in a few tables behind Phillips keeping an eye on him in case he decided to leave while Felicity was in the bathroom.

"I swear if I pick the wrong phone with his grocery list on it…." Felicity muttered getting ready to pull out her earpiece and leave.

"Isn't there another clone-y device downstairs?" Tommy quickly asked reaching for the iPad.

"No there _isn't_ but there will be after tonight," Felicity promised to hear what Tommy had just asked, she will make another one, a better one, with more memory and quicker cloning speed.

"I think I have a plan but first Felicity needs to turn her coffee date into a dinner," Tommy advised.

"What plan?" Oliver, Felicity and Diggle all asked.

"You're not going to like it," Tommy admitted.

"Tommy?" Came Felicity high strung voice through the iPad.

"It's okay, back up is on the way, go back to the table before your date think you've ditched him" Tommy reassured

x.x

"What are you doing Tommy?" Oliver asked, for weeks Tommy refused to even look in his direction because he was the Hood but now he was up to helping him set up a takedown.

"I'm helping a friend run a mission."

"You've been pissed for weeks and now you are suddenly okay with me taking down some weapons smuggler."

"I'm helping the MIT graduate get information, not the person playing judge, jury and executioner to half the people in town." Tommy snarked.

"Criminals Tommy, _criminals_…. Are you ever going to forgive me?" Oliver sighed it had been weeks since Tommy and he was around each other and people had started to notice, they had been too many comments about it over the last few weeks.

"Are you going to stop _killing_ people?" Tommy replied back because whatever Oliver's answer would be would determine if their friendship got fixed and they both knew that.  
"How good are you at stealing things?"Tommy asked completely changing the subject, "Cause you are going to have steal the other phone."

x.x.x.x

Felicity was in the middle of laughing at one of Phillip's story, they had chosen a decent Greek restaurant to go to for dinner and as soon as they sat down everything had been amazing, the food, the atmosphere, music, conversation and they were only on starters, they hadn't even gotten their main meal.

If he wasn't a criminal Felicity would have rated it one of the best date she had been on this year, even with him being a criminal it was _still_ a pretty good date.

"So a goat actually ate your shorts?" Felicity laughed wiping away her tears.

"Yes, I have the picture to prove it." He confessed picking up one of the two phones and going through the photo collection showing Felicity the picture of a goat chewing his shorts and one of his bandaged thighs. "I've decided to cut my trips short after that."

"Poor goat"

"Poor me Felicity, poor _me_" Phillip corrected.

"But he must have been so hungry to eat your shorts and think about the pain he suffered having to digest it"

"Not as much pain as I was in having to explain to the nurse in barely passable French what happened to my thigh. Go ahead laugh it up"

"Oh I am," Felicity admitted taking a sip on the white wine she ordered still laughing at his expense. "So was it a male nurse or a female nurse."

"Does that matter?" Phillip questioned narrowing his eyes at his date pretending to be annoyed.

"Just wanting the full picture, I'm with the goat on this one, he can't relish your embarrassment so I want to do it for him."

"Fine it was a male nurse Jean-Luc I think, and jokes on you _and_ the goat, I had a very gentle and caring nurse. Didn't even blink when I told him about the goat, I bet you the hospital had ten cases a day because of that goat."

Felicity kept giggling at the image an American tourist in a small town somewhere in France having to walk into a hospital because a goat ate his shorts. "Are you sure he even understood your 'barely passable French'"

"Oh, he understood alright. I got someone to teach me the word for goat, so if you can imagine, I walked into the hospital pointing to my thigh screaming goat and bleeding. I must have said 'goat' twenty thousand times that day, even wanted to file a police report."

"Oh I can see it now, the entire town locked down, police hunting for a shorts-eating goat." Felicity giggled.

"The only thing I will _ever _thank that goat for was for giving me this story so I could make you laugh is a very nice laugh"

"I… thank you" Felicity replied blushing, she was starting to feel bad about what she was doing. The problem was Phillip was a very likeable guy despite all the things he did after dark.

"Miss Smoak"

"I.. Oh, Mr Queen?" Felicity fumbled getting up, what was he doing here. She really didn't have to fake her surprise at seeing Oliver in the restaurant because she was _very_ surprised.

"Heads up" Diggle texted a moment too late.

"I am so sorry to interrupt your date I was just on my way to QC because my computer crashed but I realised is late and there will be no one there and I needed the presentation on here for tomorrows meeting, I kinda just walked in here to drown my sorrows before my date arrives and here you are?" Oliver said pretending to be bashful and embarrassed for crashing her date. "If you don't mind you could just take a look at this for me real quick"

"I… er…"

"Allow me to pay for your dinner, please." Oliver offered.

"Sorry Phillip if you could just…," Felicity said indicating that she needed to step away, taking her purse with her.

Grabbing the laptop out of Oliver's hands she walked away with her head held high until they reached the bar area where Diggle was sat keeping an eye on her.

"Really Oliver, your computer crashed so you came to a _Greek_ _restaurant_ to drown your sorrow before your date and '_just so happened'_ to bump into me." Why did Oliver suck at coming up with excuses, _Jesus. _

"It worked didn't it?"

"No, it really _didn't_. Why am I looking at Tommy's laptop?" Felicity questioned.

"That's the plan _I_ came up with, is there a way for you to transfer the data on your clone-y device thingy onto his laptop you'll have enough space to clone the second phone" Oliver confessed. "I want to try this before having to resort to the other plan"

"I… Seriously you guys suck at tech talk" Felicity huffed setting up the transfer, luckily for Team Hood she had picked a restaurant with wi-fi. "Okay the file is sending, lots of data here, like a shit load which could be good because it might mean that I cloned the right device or he could have files on the danger of short-eating goats." Felicity mused.

"Great"

"No not great, it will take at least fifteen minutes to transfer everything over and I just can't abandon my date for that long."

"Go back and finish the date, listen to more of that goat story, I think he really likes you." Tommy teased, he was sat outside in the car waiting for Oliver to finish crashing Felicity's date.

"Shut up Tommy" Oliver snapped drawing looks from both Felicity and Diggle, Diggle was more I know why you are in a bad mood but cut it out and Felicity was just plain confused.

"How am I going to get my device back and what about the second phone?"

"My idea is a lot better and simpler than that computer bull Oliver just came up with," Tommy promised. "We should have already started with that instead of this stupid computer date thing" Tommy grumbled.

"As so long as you don't have Oliver making up the reason then I'm sure it will be fine," Felicity stated making a big show of typing some more and pointing to random things on Tommy's laptop, if she was in Phillips shoes she would be watching what was going on here like a hawk.

x.x.

"Sorry about that… that was just … yeah" Felicity apologised sitting back down.

"Really, so you mean to tell me you don't have your boss crash your date?" Phillip joked.

"Well more boss's boss's boss's boss to the however many time's _son _but no, have to say this is the first time, that's happened, thank God right" Felicity joked.

If there was _ever _a next time where Felicity was in the field she was making sure Oliver played bodyguard at the bar and Diggle will be the one to come up with the excuse, also why was Tommy so sure his plan was better than Oliver's and..… did Oliver say he was meeting a _date _**_here_**?

"This might actually be a good thing" Phillip offered noticing how nervous Felicity was

"Really?" Felicity asked seeing Tommy text the exact same thing from wherever he was.

"Yeah, you've just saved him and his presentation and it must be really important if he pulled you from a date to ask for help"

"Must be." Felicity winced

"You know I always thought Oliver Queen was this smooth ladies man not that bumbling idiot type"

Felicity who had been in the middle of taking a sip on wine ended up choking on some of it. "I…. You…" Yep from that deep bass growl Felicity was sure she could hear from her seat Oliver had just heard that and from the laughing emoji Tommy's was flooding the app with _everyone_ had heard that

"Sorry, I know he's your boss's son but I didn't expect him to be so nervous coming over, he wasn't Friday night."

"I… erm… Friday night?" Felicity questioned, great she was sounding like the idiot now, maybe she should turn the phone face down so she didn't have to see the other messages but if she did that she might miss a warning or something.

"Yeah he was in the club as well, had a VIP table flirting with this girl but maybe that was just his partying persona or maybe he took one look at you and saw how beautiful you were tonight and lost all thoughts."

"I… er…. Why don't we stop talking about the boss's son, tell me more about yourself. You said you had a brother, what's he like?" Felicity really hoped Phillip would stop flirting and stop mentioning Oliver, now that she could see the response through the app it was really throwing her off, Diggle had even used the message function at all.

"_Booo_ don't do that, I want to hear more about Ollie" Tommy texted, he was really enjoying himself now, if only he had a snack or a pair of binoculars to see everyone's reaction.

"He's looking over here" Phillip stated.

"He is?" Felicity had to turn slightly in her chair to see that yes Oliver was looking over, **glaring** over here.

"I er… I didn't boot up the computer maybe he needs help looking for the file" Felicity wondered out loud turning back around. "I'm sure whatever it is can _wait_ till morning, he's interrupted enough as it is" Felicity said sharply, mostly as a warning directed at Oliver to stay where he was.

"Not likely, he's coming over"

"He is?"

"Oliver, what are you _doing_?" Tommy asked with the same panic in his voice as Felicity felt, although Oliver couldn't hear as he left his comms with Diggle by the bar and had switched to using his phone as a means of communicating.

"I feel so bad about interrupting your date before just wanted to say sorry, and to thank Ms Smoak for fixing the laptop I've taken care of the bill and ordered a bottle of the best red for you two" Oliver stated confidently once he reached their table.

"Thanks" Felicity grimaced shooting daggers Oliver

"No thanks necessary, my date's waiting for me so I'll leave you to enjoy the rest of your meal." Oliver smiled back, just then the maitre'd or the manager or _whoever_ came over and directed Oliver and his date to their own table…._ Five feet_ away from Felicity's.

Phillip and Felicity shared an awkward laugh while Oliver and his date got settled in.

"Guess, we'll just keep seeing each other" Oliver mused taking the menu and wine list from the waiter. It had been a split second decision to bribe the manager for a table by the window that just so happened to be next to Felicity and her mark because that's what he was, a mark and it was up to Oliver to remind her of that and keep this mission on track.

"Yes, great. That's _amazing_, why don't you just push the table together make it a double date." Felicity asked sarcastically.

"Great idea, it's been so long since I've gone on a date I wouldn't know what to talk about. Do people still say Fetch?" Oliver joked but it went over the other two's head.

"No one says fetch, stop trying to make Fetch happen Oliver" Felicity instantly shot back smiling.

Quoting 'Mean girls' was a sure fire way of making Felicity happy and it was so unfair because she wanted to be annoyed with Oliver, the only good thing about the joined table was it still allowed Felicity to glare daggers at Oliver.


	6. Double date

Felicity would have _liked_ to say the double date had gone well, she _would_ have liked to say Oliver acted like a gentleman whose only purpose was to help her get the data from the second phone but instead Oliver was useless, as far as Felicity could tell he was doing nothing that could help her get the aforementioned data, the only thing he seemed interested in doing was flirting with his date whilst being a dick to Phillip.

On one hand there was Oliver aka The Hood who was acting like he wanted to stick Phillip with an arrow right there in the middle of the restaurant and on the other hand there was Phillip who hated Oliver because Oliver was living up to his rich boy douchebag media persona, then on a mysterious invisible but _no_ less irritating third hand there was _Cynthia_ -Oliver's date for the evening- who couldn't even read a sentence let alone read between the lines to understand why the entire situation was awkward and why no one needed her to be giggling and flirting with Oliver every five seconds.

"So Cynthia what do you do?" Phillip asked somewhat pleasantly, while he had a problem with Oliver Queen he was still forced to be polite to him and his date. One word from the over-sized brat and Phillip would be fired from the bank and he needed that job to keep his other activities hidden and not that it mattered as much, but by 'being the nice guy' he made Oliver look like an even bigger dick in Felicity's eyes; it was especially fun to watch how when Queen opened his mouth she shot him a glare

"Oh I'm a model." Cynthia replied back her fingers lingering on Oliver's arm why exactly she needed to do _that_ to answer a simple question Phillip couldn't figure it out, the entire thing was a cliché the billionaire play boy dating a model splashing about his money behaving like an asshole.

"Of _course_ you are." Felicity snarked drawing everyone's attention to her, the statement might have come out a little too bitter than her slightly buzzed mind had intended "I… I just mean you _look_ like a model, very beautiful, gorgeous in fact just the type of woman Oliver - Mr Queen dates."

"Thanks?" Cynthia sounding unsure as to whether she'd just been complimented or not.

"You haven't dated any models have you Phil?" Oliver asked clapping Phillip on the shoulder with way more force than was necessary judging by the wince on Phillip's face.

The tone was jovial enough but there _was_ that underlying message of '_of course you've never dated models, they are out of your league' _that everyone else heard "You don't mind me calling you Phil do you Phil?"

"I'm pretty sure his name is Phillip" Felicity answered before Oliver strong-armed the mark into a nickname he didn't want, she wanted to kick Oliver right now but there were too many knees under the table for her to correctly judge which was Oliver's and which was Phillip's.

"Phil is fine, my brother calls me Phil but no, I don't really date models more IT geniuses or doctors and lawyers you know people with a university degree." Philip answered smoothly subtly returning his own little dig which made Felicity smile.

Even though Felicity couldn't read _all_ of Tommy's comments without having to pick up her phone she could clearly make out the laughing emoji so he was enjoying Phillip's little dig as much as she was.

"Is being a model hard work?" Phillip asked filling in the awkward silence that had descended on the table as Felicity went about draining her glass of wine, if she couldn't kick Oliver she was going to make this date as expensive as she could, now that Oliver was paying for the entire table, it may be too late to order champagne but it wasn't too late to order a second bottle of the most expensive wine the restaurant had to offer.

x.x.x.x.

As much as Tommy wanted to stay and listen to the world worst double date he had to leave since Malcolm had began flooding Tommy's phone with texts and calls demanding his presence at the usual restaurant.

Tommy wondered how Oliver ended up being a vigilante after being ship wrecked for five years, he understood the promise to Robert to make the city a better place but there was so many ways to do it.

How did a man spend so many years on a deserted island and not come back and seize the day or go after what he wants, he couldn't even admit to wanting what he wants; it didn't matter what Ollie had said on the drive over to the Greek restaurant Felicity wasn't just his 'IT person' and sure the excuse that he was annoyed that she was forgetting that she was on a mission with a potential criminal would have rung true if Oliver hadn't gone in being all Douche-bag McQueen making fun of Phillip.

x.x

At the next set of red light Tommy reached over and increased the volume on the iPad only to hear Cynthia moaning as Oliver fed her from his plate. "Is he being serious right now?" Tommy questioned.

"Leave it man, it's up to them to sort things out" came the stoic and soothing voice of Diggle through the ear piece.

"Pisses me the fuck off."

"They aren't in a relationship; he's free to do whatever he wants and she hasn't said anything to him so..."

"At least tell me he's stolen the phone" Tommy sighed, the whole plan was for Oliver to steal the phone.

"... the data is just about finished transferring onto your laptop, as soon as I can have a look we'll know if Felicity managed to clone the correct one." Diggle replied back instead commenting on the lack of professionalism going on.

"Sure talk to you later Digs, I've got my very own disaster over a meal to deal with, have her call me when this is over."

"Good luck" Diggle signed off cutting Tommy's connection to the app.

Fucking Oliver, at this point he didn't even deserve for someone like Felicity to have a crush on him.

She could do some much better than a man whore who was a killer, who couldn't admit to liking her, he had this mission which was his whole life and everything came second to that and even if that wasn't enough Felicity deserved someone who wouldn't treat her like this; dangling a potential maybe future in front of her keeping her hopeful while he still slept around, someone who would always make her second best.

Felicity was beautiful, talented, kind, considerate, selfless, brave, funny; she was one character trait away from being a fucking Goddess with the things she put up with and here Oliver was always treating her like shit, stringing her along like usual.

She was fucking amazing and she deserved better than to make Oliver and his mission her life's work.

Unfortunately Tommy knew that she would always go back to Ollie, their's was the great love no matter how many time Oliver fucked up and cheated she always went back and all Oliver had to do was say he interested and she would go back Laurel would always go back.

**Felicity**.

He meant Felicity, this was about _her_ and the fact that Oliver was treating her the same way as he had Laurel back then.

He and Laurel were solid, she'd moved on, they'd all moved on, it been five years they even thought he was dead, they all had closure and Oliver liked Felicity now and Laurel liked him- **_loved_** him in fact.

Their relationship was solid; Oliver was a criminal, a murderer and Laurel was the newest assistant district attorney, it won't work they were on opposite side of the law, she would end up prosecuting him if she ever found out or he would have to keep half of his life a secret hidden away from her.

x.x.x.x

"What do you want?" Tommy hurled out before sitting down, there was no need for false pleasantries he had just managed to put himself in a bad mood thinking about Laurel and Oliver.

"Nice to see you son, how have you been?" Malcolm asked quickly shooting a look over to Tommy, trying to figure out why he was in such a bad mood.  
"The usual drink and food for both of us." Malcolm ordered handing back the wine list and menu to the waiter, each year he chose the same thing; Rebecca's favourite wine to go along with her favourite meal.

"What do you want?" Tommy found himself repeating.

"Can we not start an argument it's your mum's birthday after all." Malcolm declared shocking Tommy.

In the decade plus years in which she had been dead his dad hadn't ever uttered a single word about Rebecca Merlyn and now he wanted to play nice because it was _her birthday_; this was the same man that chose to this particular day to berate him year after year.

"I know what day it is." Tommy bit out. "What I don't know is why you called, I mean the whole point of this annual exercise is for you to hold the inheritance over my head but since you cut me off I'm not exactly sure what I am doing here."

"I've been keeping an eye on you since the last time we spoke-"

"When you basically cut me off for being a disappointment, yeah I remember"

"Behave." Malcolm chastised waiting for the waiter to finish pouring the bottle of 1972 French Pinot Noir. "Why are you being so difficult?" He questioned.

"Why am I here?' Tommy countered ready to leave.

"If you will give me five seconds to explain _without_ interrupting I could let you know." Malcolm snapped before shifting in his seat, he needed to get this right, "As I was _saying_ I've kept an eye on you after cutting you off and I have to say I am very impressed with the way you've handled this being without money. You've got yourself your own flat instead of shacking up with Laurel or going to the Queens for help, you've got yourself a job although it is working for Oliver but from all accounts you basically run the place, hire the employees, manage the business, glad-handle all the city employees and officials I am-"

"Is there _a point_ to all of this?" Tommy asked tired of listening to Malcolm's talking, he should have stayed at the stake out to help keep an eye on Felicity, heck sitting at the bar with Diggle waiting for the files to finish downloading would have been a lot better than being here.

"I was saying that I am proud of you" Malcolm huffed out feeling like Tommy just ruined the moment.

x.x.x.x

"So how do you know each other?" Phillip coughed out trying to smooth out the awkward silence after Oliver's comment about Phillip's watch; he didn't come out and just say it but the implication that Oliver found it to be '_cheap_' definitely came out loud and clear.

"Let's just say Oliver is won a dare and leave it at that" Cynthia said mysteriously before winking over at Oliver. "What about the two of you?" the date returned.

"Clubbing if you could believe it" Phillip chuckled. "I some how managed to convince her to take my number and call me whenever she feels like."

"That fortunate for you, I can't tell you the amount of times I forget to call people back. So I'm assuming you and Oliver know each other because you work for QC?" Cynthia asked looking at Felicity.

"Yep we work at the same company and he's so technologically challenged, our _entire_ IT department are known for giving him an **_amazing_** amount of leeway" Felicity grinned, taking a sip of water making sure to look over at Oliver as she was talking.

"So how about a second date"

"Second date?" Felicity squeaked out choking on her moussaka "I er-"

"Sorry I have a big project that I need Felicity's help with at work, she can't make it" Oliver cut in, playing the knight in shining Versace suit or whatever brand he was wearing expect in this case it wasn't appreciated, she didn't need him to come to her rescue. "How do you like that red?" Oliver asked pretending not to notice how awkward he had just made everything.

Felicity herself knew she was turning red from due to the sheer embarrassment she was feeling yet Oliver didn't so much as twitch as he continued eating, maybe it was all that training; did someone train the _embarrassment _out of him within those five years?

"We were drinking white tonight but that wasn't too bad." Phillip replied lamely answering for Felicity.

"Oh, I'm sorry I already owe Felicity a bottle of red from before." Oliver smiled back.

"Oliver." Diggle warned uselessly over the comms seeing as he wasn't wearing it while sat next to the target.

Phillip had that confused look on his face for a split second before his eyes darted from Oliver back to Felicity as if he was finally understanding something.

"Felicity likes wine" Felicity quickly replied, speaking in the third person. "I mean **I like** wine any wine; red, white, rose, fortified. There's this really nice fortified one from South Africa called Amarula, really nice, really amazing just got it off amazon, shipped to my house within three days. I have some at home _great_ wine, I talk about wine all the time" Felicity finished panicking considering that she was on her third glass in under thirty minutes it was a very great cover-up.

"Is there something going on with you two?" Cynthia asked cutting the tension.

"What no, nope, me and him never, no"

"Of course not, Felicity and I are work colleagues" Oliver added casually helping her out.

"You know what I know, you lot think I'm just an air head but I know men and you" Cynthia said pointing at Oliver "are into blondie here and when you are not using me to make her jealous you are getting into a dick measuring contest with him" she continued pointing to Phillip, "I have better things to do with my time than waste it on this, and you IT nerd sort your shit out." she snapped grabbing her jacket and storming away.

Felicity didn't even look up when Philip threw down his napkin as he followed Cynthia out, she didn't need to look up to see the restaurant full of people staring at their table.

x.x.x.x

"You are proud of me?" Tommy hadn't had anything to drink today so he wasn't drunk, no was he asleep so this couldn't be a dream, he could have gotten into a car accident on the way to the restaurant and this was his body's way of dealing with the trauma by coming up with this weird and complicated scenario where his dad finally said something nice.

"Yes Tommy I am pr-"

"_You_. Malcolm Merlyn are **_proud_** of something _I_ did?" Tommy questioned slowly making sure to enunciate every word .

"Yes is that so hard to believe I-"

"It's impossible to believe, so what's the catch? You're proud of me _but_ it would be better if I wasn't dating Laurel or you are proud of me _but_ you want me to quit working for Oliver or you are proud of me _but-"_

_"_While _both _those things may be true I can't deny the fact that she has been good for you in helping you grow."

"Is this some type of reverse psychology you think that if you praise Laurel I will end up dumping my girlfriend?"

"No, despite me thinking that you are too good for her I know nothing I can say will change your mind about dating Oliver's left overs. E_x-girlfriend_" Malcolm quickly amended seeing the annoyed look on his son's face

"Is this your way of telling me you are dying? Do you need my kidneys?" Tommy asked concerned, he always thought that Malcolm would never show any hint of affection until he reached his deathbed so maybe this was his way off breaking the news to him.

"I don't want anything from you, I am fine passed my medical two months ago."

"Maybe you should go back so the doctors can rule out brain tumours and any signs of multiple personality disorders" Tommy suggested in all seriousness.

"Stop this, I am trying to say something nice." Malcolm found it slightly exasperating that this was taking so long, this part was meant to be the easiest one, how hard was it for Tommy to take him at his word and move on.

"Have you heard the term too little too late?" Tommy questioned before getting up, he was prepared for almost anything to night apart from Malcolm trying to be _nice and fatherly._

"Wait son." Malcolm called out stopping Tommy in his tracks "I know our relationship has always been…. Shaky but you after what happened, when I nearly died I came to the realisation that I want to be a better person, a better man."

"It's been weeks since you got shot." Tommy pointed out.

"I know, I didn't think you would pick up the phone after I disinherited you."

"I gave you my blood to help save you" Tommy sighed sitting back down. "You may be a shitty father and I may hate you most of the time **_but _**you are still my dad and I do still love you."

"I- er, yeah thanks"

"Are you serious about this?" Tommy asked not wanting to get his hopes up.

"Yes, yes son. I was thinking about putting you in charge of the outreach programme get the city involved in-"

"I have a job"

"But do you like working for Oliver because I can-"

"You are the second person to ask me that this week but, like Felicity pointed out it doesn't really matter because there are worse jobs in the world than running a successful night club for your friend especial seeing as he's never there so it's basically my club."

"Felicity is that-"

"I am _not _cheating on Laurel dad"

"I was going to ask if she was a new friend Tommy nothing more." Malcolm sighed digging into the plate of lasagna in front of him, getting Tommy to let his guard down was harder than he thought it would be and Malcolm needed Tommy to start trusting him if he was going to save his son.

Verdant was slowly turning into the place of choice to the criminal elite to conduct business and while Malcolm didn't normally care he had been informed of the fact that Wang Wei had been in the club hours before and the Hood killed him, it was only a matter of time before the police traced his movement back to the club and once they did that they would realise the club was turning into a front which would mean Tommy would soon be under surveillance and that couldn't happen.

It wasn't a problem as such but it would be better if Tommy listened to him and left the clubbing business but for that to happen Tommy would have to trust Malcolm so here he was 'gaining' his son's trust, by making small talk about nothing in general as the night went on.

x.x.x.x

"Come on, I can drive you home." Diggle declared walking up to the table with Felicity's jacket in hand, all but slamming Tommy's laptop into Oliver's chest. "She had the correct phone, we'll deal with this tomorrow."

x.x.x.x

Tommy walked out of the restaurant his mind still reeling from everything that happened, he wasn't sure which was more surprising Malcolm saying he was proud of Tommy or the fact that he had broken tradition and had gone the whole evening without a single barb or insult about Tommy, there were little digs about the Queens (mainly Oliver) and another one about Laurel but not a single word said in negativity about Tommy himself.

Tommy was so distracted that he didn't notice the missed calls from Laurel nor did he even see the messages she sent.

* * *

_**Writer's note:**_

Sorry for the long wait but I lost this chapter and a couple of others and got really disheartened in re-writing it but I eventually put on my big girl pants and did it.

Seems like everyone is insecure about something; Tommy and Laurel about their relationship for different reasons, Laurel thinks she is going to be cheated on and Tommy thinks he's going to get dumped, Oliver is a brat and Felicity just wants to drink the whole encounter away.

All comment, reviews and PM are appreciated


	7. Half-truths

"Sorry to interrupt, just wanted to say hi… I - Thea is back home safe and sound" Laurel greeted sounding somewhat stilted she hadn't meant to interrupt Oliver getting ready for work but his door had been left partially open so she didn't think he would mind.

The sight before her was- she'd seen the scares before when he first got back in the hospital she'd seen the scars under the harsh fluorescent lights but for some reason looking at them now under the soft natural light it looked worse, she felt worse.

They were the same scars but the were- it was different she didn't need any more reminders of what had happened to him for five years, half a decade on a deserted island did that to his body; it scarred him both physically and mentally.

The contrast between the Oliver of yesteryears and of now was startling; this Oliver still joked, drunk and partied but his eyes, those were different and he'd changed. There were times where Oliver seemed haunted by what happened, the island aged him more than those five years he spent stranded on it but then there were times where it felt like he hadn't gone at all, sometimes when he looked at her he could see 'her Ollie' in there waving back at her it was in the way he smiled.

"Thank you, Laurel, how is she?" Oliver asked unaware of the thought going through his ex-girlfriend's mind.

"Good, she said she has a big assignment due soon, she's worried about Walter and your mum" Laurel confessed walking in meeting Oliver halfway she wasn't sure why she was doing it, she should leave.

"She is?" this was news to Oliver she hadn't mentioned being worried to him

"Yeah, I guess Walter's kidnapping brings back a few bad memories."

"I'll talk to her... thanks for letting me know and thanks for the spa weekend" Oliver was grateful that Laurel was there to look out for Thea, he just didn't know how to, not really Try as he might to connect with her Thea wasn't the same Speedy that was left behind five years ago and he wasn't the same Oliver

"It's no big deal I got to hang out with my favourite Queen and I had a spa weekend"

"We both know I'm your favourite" Oliver bantered back buttoning up his shirt and throwing his jacket on as he led Laurel out of his room, he needed to get to a General Managers meeting at QC in less than an hour and he wasn't prepared thanks to the Hood paying Phillip a visit last night. "So how's being the new ADA treating you, there's always a job for you at QC if criminal law gets too boring."

"No thanks, I enjoy what I do for a living unlike some of us" Laurel replied unable to hide the barb.

"What does that mean" Oliver frowned coming to a stop a few steps behind Laurel as they made their way down.

"It means Ollie that you don't exactly look happy going to work for the family company and you don't look happy at the club when you eventually decide to turn up, you leave all that to Tommy _and_ it means that you, you should find something that you love and go after it because we both know how short life can be" Laurel advised "You spent five years stuck on an island in misery and you've come back and you still look miserable half of the time." Laurel pointed out, she wasn't going to mention how Thea thought Oliver might be happier stuck on the island.

"I am not unhappy with my life, I'm just finding my feet again being back here with everyone it's... different," Oliver confessed staring directly at Laurel he didn't want her to think he was lying about this. "I have some things to sort out first _then_ I can figure out what makes me happy."

"As long as you plan on being happy there nothing wrong with taking your time to make sure that you don't ruin that happiness once you get it."

"Exactly what I was thinking" Oliver smiled back it wasn't a lie per se but he wasn't sure if he'd just said the truth and neither was Laurel since she still looked worried about him, "I went on my first double date since I've been back," Oliver admitted wiping the concerned look on Laurel's face replacing it with shock and if he could still read her _jealousy._

Laurel was jealous that he went on a date, it was as unexpected for her to feel it as it was for him to see it.

x.x.x

Laurel tried calling Tommy one more time as she made her way into work well aware of that fact that he was probably sleeping.

She knew his annual meeting with Malcolm always took it out of him both physically and mentally but once again her phone calls went unanswered however this time it went straight to voicemail; which didn't mean anything more than the fact that Tommy forgot to charge his phone Laurel said trying to convince herself.

As the call got sent to voicemail Laurel made a split-second decision to call again; she wasn't sure what it was maybe instinct or guilt but she couldn't help but fear Tommy was with the Felicity girl; Felicity Meghan Smoak graduated from MIT at the top of her class, she was on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter although she rarely posted on the sites as of late but there were multiple pictures of mojitos and various cocktails each picture was a couple of days apart and they were just of the drinks but Laurel had been in Verdant enough times to recognise it.

Felicity had been around Tommy for a while now nearly three months (that's when the first picture was taken) and Tommy hadn't said a word about her, not even a passing mention of the computer at Verdant needing work.

He was hiding something, the same instinct that told Laurel every time Oliver cheated had been going off when she thought about Tommy; he wasn't telling her what he and Oliver had fallen out over, was ignoring the Queens as a whole and had began hanging out with blonde MIT graduates in the middle of the afternoon making mocktails.

Tommy wasn't Oliver but he was Oliver's best friend and he had helped Oliver lie to her face and covered up the cheating in the past and birds of a kind did fly together plus he wasn't answering his phone.

x.x.x

Laurel's relationship trouble was the last thing on her mind by the time she'd left work that evening; she'd been worried when her boss pulled her into the office thinking that he was about to reassign her case to a more seasoned professional instead of the department's newest hire but apparent early this morning the cops had managed to find a new star witness for her trial against David Krane. More accurately, the witness had gone to the cop and admitted to being the money man for Krane and loads of other people, he also 'voluntarily' handed over all the proof that was needed to collaborate his claims.

It was apparent by the shaking and hyper-vigilance that the Hood had 'encouraged' this confession but Laurel wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and since the cops hadn't found any signs of forced entry at his house and they had been no visible bruising on Mr Days then no one in the department were going out of their way to prove the confession was coerced by a masked vigilante.

After a long day of having the fraud department and various other people verify this new information Laurel had finally given everyone a break and told them to go home, luckily Tommy had already reached out asking her to come to his for a home-cooked dinner.

"So I got a breakthrough on my Krane case," Laurel said informing Tommy of her latest breakthrough.

"Yeah?" Tommy called out letting Laurel know that he was still listening from the kitchen, he had just finished plating up the pasta dish that Carly (Diggle's sister in law) had recommended and was already on his way back with the food.

"Yeah, a man named Phillip Days came to the police station confessing everything after a word from the Hood. I now have a living witness to testify against Krane." Laurel bragged, she didn't want to jinx anything but Days had been taken into federal custody that evening so hopefully, he could be kept safe until the trial.

Tommy froze less than seven words in upon hearing the name of Laurel's new star witness, he didn't want to do anything to arouse her suspicion but the fact that _Felicity's_ Phillip was now Laurel's Phillip didn't sit comfortably with Tommy.

Oliver and the whole house of cards was one lie, one stray comment away from tumbling down.

It was all a coincidence, an unfortunate coincidence; Oliver couldn't have known that Phillip was also the money man for Krane, he didn't even know about Laurel's new case, this was all just a happenstance.

"That's amazing" Tommy croaked out offering a weak smile. "I bet you can get more criminals now with this guy coming forward, you can even freeze some of the accounts use the money to build a statue in your name" Tommy finished loving the mixed look of annoyance and love written on Laurel's face because of his suggestion.

He really didn't like having to feign ignorance when Laurel brought up the Hood and now he especially hated the fact that he was lying to her about why he and Oliver weren't on speaking terms actually he hadn't made up a lie but he still hated the way he kept changing the subject every time she brought it up.

"The mayor and govern decides what to do with all the money, not some lowly ADA."

"I'm just saying if there was a seventy-foot statute of you in the middle of town crime rate will drop everyone will be too busy staring at your beauty to commit any crimes"

"You did not just say that" Laurel guffawed having to place her wine down. "That was so cheesy"

"What you don't want a seventy-foot statue of you in the middle of town?" Tommy mocked gasped.

"As lovely as that sounds, no" Laurel stated leaning over for a quick kiss she wanted to enjoy as much of tonight as she could, the next couple of weeks were going to be hectic with the case now gaining a proper witness not to mention all the new lead Phillip would bring to the table to get a better plea deal.

"Whatever you say, what do you think of this?" Tommy asked nodding to the plate, he had.

"It's really good what is it?"

"Cacio e Pepe, which translate to black pepper and cheese pasta took twenty minutes but this is the first time I am making it... need to thank Carly for this" Tommy muttered, it was a really good dish if he said so himself.

"Carly, whose Carly?" Laurel questioned feigning curiosity.

"Diggle's sister in law, _Carly_" Tommy replied back before realising that Laurel had in fact not met her before, "You two haven't met have you well she Diggle's .. actually I think I will be calling her his girlfriend soon they've been dancing around each other for so long that she's probably going to strangle him if he doesn't just ask her out."

Every word Tommy said only made Laurel want to ask more questions like who the hell Diggle was but Tommy just kept talking so it felt like she missed her chance. "So did anything else happen this weekend at the club." Laurel casually asked not mentioning that she had trolled through Verdants Instagram page even with all her words of trusting Tommy she couldn't help it.

"Not really, Oliver and his date for the night came through along with some of the usual." Tommy briefly wondered if he should also mention Felicity considering the whole Phillip Days situation but as he had already mentioned Oliver who was the **actual **vigilante it made didn't make sense not to mention her. "Felicity also came through with some of her co-workers from QC everyone had a great night"

Everyone apart from Felicity who came face to face with the American dragon and his gun and Mr Wei himself who ended up dead that night and Tommy who had a gun in his club but apart from that good times all around.

The moment he found out the truth about Oliver he had begun living a life of half-truths he couldn't exactly tell Laurel about the gun in the nightclub without mentioning Mr Wei and he couldn't mention Mr Wei without Laurel finding out that the Hood killed him. and he couldn't mention Felicity making out with Phillip without Laurel connect the dots and realising that Felicity and her new star witness had been on a date the night before and then the whole house of cards would come tumbling down, destroying everything and everyone.

Tommy took a deep breath trying to refocus on the here and now he could worry about this later once Laurel had gone to bed.

"So how did that go?" Laurel asked trying to sound carefree pushing aside all the suspicion she felt, Tommy was lying about something or at least not telling her the whole truth and Laurel couldn't figure out why.

"Everything was good, with word spreading on social media about Ollie stopping by attendance jumped ten percent on Friday and another ten yesterday so the club made a killing."

Laurel wasn't sure if she should keep pushing for more information on Felicity and just how good her night had been or take the new Ollie opening to finally find out what's going on with him and Tommy.

"Guess people like the idea of partying the two of you and now that he's back it's kinda a novelty getting to brag about seeing Oliver Queen post island. How is Ollie, did he do the whole VIP thing or... "

"Would you like a top-up of the wine, I'm going to get another beer" Tommy quickly deflected standing up and walking to the fridge.

Laurel's hints about wanting to know what his and Oliver's fallout was about were no longer subtle.

While a part of Tommy wanted to throw Oliver under the bus and finally be honest about everything with Laurel he couldn't; he would never forgive himself if he went through with it, plus there were Felicity and Diggle to think about.

If Oliver got caught they would too and Ollie had the money, resources and a _really_ good argument for insanity just there in his back pocket after five years alone on a deserted island; Felicity and Diggle had none of those.

Then there was the fact that if he told Laurel the truth she would then be dealing with arresting Oliver and ruining her relationship with the Queens forever or doing nothing and becoming like Tommy living in a life of half-truths, Tommy could just picture it Laurel being forced to keep quiet or someone would make a joke about the time Quentin thought Oliver was the Hood and she would just have to laugh along... Tommy couldn't do that to her.

Tommy eventually went back to the table and somehow managed to keep the conversation going without revealing anything, he had even managed to convince Laurel to leave the dishes for him and get to bed early since she had a massive week ahead of her.

While standing in the middle of his kitchen having cooked food for Laurel with her getting ready to sleep in his bed Tommy briefly wondered if this could be his future, coming home hearing about Laurel's big case, cooking and eating together, sleeping and waking up together, it all had a nice ring to it -pun not intended, not yet anyway but down the line, maybe.

He still needed to work out a few things first before he started thinking about marrying her; questions like if or _when_ he should tell her about the Hood seemed to be at the top of the list.

Somewhere near the middle was making sure that Laurel was completely over Oliver before he proposed then down at the bottom was figuring out what she was like to live with... should he reorganise his list.

_**Writer's Note:**_

I wanted to discuss Oliver and Felicity but they just didn't seem to fit, this felt like a chapter dedicated to our other two couple.

How many of you are surprised that Laurel is jealous of the double date, 'not I' you say? Well me neither but apparently she surprised herself by being jealous.

Oliver just said that he wants to be happy but does he really? Has he taken ANY steps to be happy does he think he even deserves to be happy? Or maybe he's telling the truth maybe he thinks that after crossing all the names off the list he will be ready to be happy that he just needs to find his feet. Who knows?

Now onto Tommy... well what can I say about the sweetest guy in town. Nothing my man is perfect and I will FIGHT anyone who disagrees... find I will here some comments but don't expect me to be civil (I'm joking).

In all honesty Tommy does have some flaws i.e ... I can't think of any but if you do please tell me, I need some character development for the Sweetest guy in town. Maybe I need him to quit Verdant and find out exactly what he wants to do with his life, he's no longer a trust fund baby and this job kinda fell into his lap. Does he really want it or is he just working there because he knows the club scene and just so happens to be a good manager.

All comments and reviews are GREATLY appreciated. Any character flaws or development you want to see/ tell me about is also appreciated.


	8. Lost Princess

"I'm guessing there was no suspicious activity at the docks" Oliver greeted, sauntering back in nearly after an hour after Diggle had arrived.

Felicity shifted nervously in her seat, feeling guilty about the little lie she told to give Oliver the runaround. "I'm guessing you knew that before you went." Felicity countered the fact that she had split Diggle and Oliver up was enough of a clue to let Oliver know what was going on before he even left.

As much as she was trying to avoid Oliver, he was also trying to avoid her as well; he'd gone out of that bogus call, and when he came back he had spent ten minutes just sitting outside on his motorbike in the pouring rain.

"Felicity"

"Oliver"

"See you guys tomorrow" Diggle called out making a speedy exit, the two of them needed to sort out whatever was going on with them.

"About yesterday," Oliver began then pausing as he had nothing else to say.

"Yeah?" Felicity asked hopeful, sure she had sent Oliver to the other side of the city to check out a non-existent crime, but she did want to know what Oliver thought about what Cynthia had said last night.

"Thanks for getting the phone, the city's a lot safer now. I'll try not to send you out into the field again."

"Oh!" Felicity couldn't keep the disappointment out of her voice, not that she tried very much, "Is that it?"

Oliver walked several feet to the left, placing the bow and arrows into their casings and shrugging off his jacket revealing the green shirt underneath."It's a good thing the police now have several new leads into-"

"Enough" Felicity sighed, standing up. She was all for avoiding the issue, but he couldn't bring it up then backtrack. She had been a nervous wreck all day, waiting for this conversation to happen."I am not avoiding this any longer, and neither are you. I have feelings for you, and I think you have feelings for me."

"Felicity."

"No, Oliver, yesterday a model told me to get my shit together before she stormed off... so this is me doing that. Now; yes or no, do you have feelings for me?" Felicity asked the loaded question out before she lost her nerve.

"Look-"

"Yes or No" Felicity repeated, demanding an answer for her question, she didn't want to hear anything else.

Oliver studied this 'new' Felicity standing before him; she was more assertive than 'I.T Felicity' a different type of sexy than 'club Felicity' and more Felicity than 'every day Felicity'.

Her bright yellow dress somehow made her look taller, or maybe it was the hot pink heels she had on, Oliver mused.

He was buying himself time comparing and ranking the different type of 'Felicity' he knew instead of answering the question, it was a simple question with one answer.

The problem wasn't the question, the problem was the answer.

If he said yes and admitted his feelings, then what?

Was he expected to act on them, or would she be willing to wait, and even if she agreed it could take years to sort out everything, to complete the mission.

Putting that angle aside for a moment, Oliver still couldn't see how this could work, being in a relationship with Felicity and having her on the team…

Tonight she sent him to the other side of the city to buy herself more time, and he'd been hiding in the alleyway in the pouring rain just to avoid this conversation.

That was just one night without them even being in a relationship what happened if they tried and they ended up not working.

What happens to the team then?

It couldn't survive without her, he couldn't survive or do half the things he does without her, neither would this city.

He had one mission, to take down everyone on the list, to help save this city, to right the wrongs his father wanted to. "No, I just-" Oliver finally spoke, "It was just the case, I was worried that you might be getting too close to the target, blurring the lines. I like you as a friend."

Felicity blinked twice and inhaled a deep fortifying breath, she'd asked a question and got an answer. "Okay."

"Felicity-" Oliver hands involuntarily clenched into fist watching as she lost her confidence because of his rejection.

"It's fine, there's no need to explain. I'm probably not the first person this happened to." Felicity continued turning around and hitting a few buttons to out the computers to sleep for the night.

"Wait, we can talk about this," Oliver called out watching as Felicity gathered her bags and jacket, he hadn't moved from his spot he wasn't sure if he should.

"We are done for the night, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Felicity."

"Tell Diggle we are still on for Big Belly."

"Wait!" Oliver called out fruitlessly because Felicity had already walked out the backdoor leaving him alone inside the bunker.

x.x.x

Felicity wasn't going to cry just because the boy she liked didn't like her back, it wasn't the seventh grade, and Oliver wasn't Joel Chambers.

Felicity was more mature now, she knew how to handle rejection. Even though a part of her felt the need to hack into the Queens telephone line and disable it like she had with Joel she wasn't going to, just like she wasn't going to cry over the fact that Oliver didn't like her.

Oliver hadn't even led her on, and he had been honest with her, wo[hich was all she really wanted.

This was actually her own fault, reading more into their interaction than there was.

Felicity could handle rejection, embarrassment, on the other hand, was… actually, she knew how to handle that too, with the lack of brain-mouth filter she had she learnt how to handle just about anything.

So she was going to be okay, she was Felicity Smoak, and she would be okay and if not she could always leave town, change her identity and apply for a job at Wayne Enterprises.

x.x.x.x

* * *

Tommy got settled in front of the couch watching the first episode of 'Firefly' that Felicity loved so much before calling Diggle he needed to warn someone about how close the walls were getting between team 'vigilante' and team 'right side of the law'.

Tommy absently wondered which team he was on; one of them held two of his friends, technically three and the other one held his girlfriend but seeing as he has been keeping Team Vigilante secret from team right side of the law he had already chosen his side.

Tommy increased the volume just slightly to drown out the call he was about to make in case Laurel decided to wander back out.

"Guess which ADA got assigned to Phillip Days" Tommy questioned over the phone.

"It shouldn't be a problem," Diggle reassured Tommy as he walked through the front door of his apartment, he was going to enjoy this early night off.

"Last night we run an operation on Phillip today, my girlfriend gets assigned to his case, that's a problem." Tommy hissed down the phone, "She is going to question him, and I know Laurel she never lets up. She's going to find out everything."

Diggle reached into the fridge and got out a couple of beers, there was bound to be some type of game on tonight that he could watch."There is nothing to find. As far as anyone knows Felicity went on a date yesterday end of the story."

"And now he's Laurel's star witness. It's strange."

"Tommy we've covered our tracks, we know how to do this vigilante thing without getting caught, but if it makes you feel better, I'll ask Felicity to delete any CCTV footage of her and Phillip from last night." Diggle casually mentioned, settling in.

It'd been a while since he had anyone panicking about being caught. But Tommy did have a point about how close this whole situation felt, guess that's why it was called a coincident.

"So how was your meeting with your dad?"

"It went… better than expected." Tommy admitted. "How was Oliver?"

"Oliver is Oliver. He and Felicity are finally talking, so I guess that's something." Diggle sighed, he didn't have a lot of confidence in everything, turning out to be okay.

The two kept on making small talk for a while even ending up watching the same football game.

x.x.x.x.

* * *

Felicity reached for her phone and did something unexpected... she willingly called Donna Smoak, for all her flaws her mum was the only person who loved Felicity unconditionally and right now Felicity needed that.

Plus her mum was the only woman she knew who could get over heartbreak in two point five seconds and Felicity needed a bit of that. "Hey mum" Felicity greeted, forcing a smile into her voice.

"Pumpkin how are you" Donna Smoak greeted half distracted by the fact that Felicity had willingly called her without a bunch of missed calls and voicemails from Donna prodding her to do so.

"Good, I just wanted to see how you were. How's Ron and the new job?"

"It didn't work out with Ron, but I'm onto bigger and better things literally, my new guy- Sean - is so much better than Ron. He owns his own house, and everything even wants me to move in."

"You just met Ron last month." Felicity pointed out, even for her mum, this was an incredibly quick relationship.

"Yeah and dumped him two weeks after and met Sean the very next day, talk about luck huh."

"Yeah, talk about luck" Felicity repeated dispassionately maybe talking to her mum was the wrong way to go. The last thing Felicity wanted to hear was how her mum had a better love life than she did.

"So what's up with you. Any man in your life."

"Nope. Same old, same old."

"I keep telling you that you've got to put yourself out there. What about that guy from work."

"I am not dating my supervisor." Felicity declared, why she had to explain how wrong that was she didn't know.

"You are not dating anyone." Donna pointed out.

"Mum!"

"I'm just saying, he seems like a nice guy, and he likes you so give him a chance."

"He has onion breathe."

"Then get him to brush his teeth" Donna dismissed, "You are too picky."

"I'll work right on that" Felicity grumbled instead pointing out that her mum wasn't picky enough when it came to men.

"What about Tommy?" Donna asked. "He seems like a nice guy, I'm sure he will-."

"He has a girlfriend. You know this" Felicity chastised. It was officially past time Felicity hanged up before she got into an argument with her mum. "Okay, I've got to go now, talk to you soon. Bye, mum." Felicity quickly hanged up not giving her mum a chance to say another word.

Sighing Felicity looked around her apartment for something to do, as luck would have it her eyes landed on her laptop. While this one was as 'heavy-duty' as the one in the club, it did contain access to a chat room on the dark web with some like-minded individual.

x.x.x.x

Donna sighed, staring at the phone in her hand, she knew she'd said the wrong thing, she always said the wrong thing when it came to Felicity.

Ever since Felicity realised that computers existed she begun speaking a different language, the language of codes and tech speak and doing things like winning national competitions and putting herself through MIT… Donna had lost her daughter a long time ago, but that didn't mean she had to give up trying.

She would give it a few days before calling Felicity back, maybe Donna could explain how she was talking that she had meant for Felicity to ask Tommy to set him up with one of his friends not for Felicity to go after Tommy.

x.x.x.x

* * *

"I've got pepper spray" Thea declared, reaching into her purse for the can that Diggle had insisted that she carried, even though he was Oliver's bodyguard he had been kind enough to look out for Thea.

This was her karma for sneaking out to see Ollie or Tommy at the club, but it wasn't like she had any other choice Tommy had been avoiding her for weeks now, and Oliver was never really around unless it was to tell her off.

With her mum pulling eighteen-hour days to cope with the fact that Walter wasn't missing the mansion felt a lot colder and lonelier, and Thea could only expect so much from Raisa before the woman had to go home to her own family.

Thea turned down another alley trying to find her way back to the main road, she'd run out of the club so quickly trying to put as much distance between her and Vertigo, so she wasn't tempted to take it that she had gotten lost.

Thea tightened her grip on the can using her thumb to flick off the cap, getting ready to use it as the footsteps of whoever was following her got closer and closer.

"Calm down blondie, I'm the good guy" came a gruff voice as her follower caught up to her.

"Good guys don't follow girls down a dark alley in the middle of the night" Thea chastised coming to a stop studying her 'companion', with the limited light from the various street lamp all she could really say was he looked to be around her age.

"And smart girls don't walk alone through alleyways in the Glades" the guy shot back forcefully pulling her into another alley.

"Hey! I know-"

"Trust me, don't trust me but if you keep going your way you'll meet a bunch of guys looking for their next victim, but hey it's your choice. The guy shrugged, walking away. "See how good that pepper spray is against them."

Thea stood there debating on what to do, she couldn't exactly find out if her saviour in the red hoodie was lying without going the way of the said ambush, but if she followed him, it could just be into a trap.

Karma.

This is karma; next time she would just call Tommy and Ollie instead of trying to surprise them. "Hold on." Thea sighed rushing to follow the hoodie-clad man, it wasn't a comfortable experience in heels walking over trash.

"You are very demanding for someone in no position to demand things" hoodie kid shot back keeping the same pace.

"You can't just leave me, aren't you meant to be helping me?"

"I'm bored with that, I'm going home. Night."

"Thea! My name is Thea."

"I already know what your name is Queen," Roy replied his voice holding a note of disdain for the leggy brunette.

Rich kid smashes her car and doesn't get into trouble then literally leaves her mansion to walk the Glades at night. Probably looking for trouble or drugs and here he was being a fucking idiot and saving her, because rich or not even the spoilt princess didn't deserve to be attacked.

"You are the one who pulled me here, and now I'm lost, so the least you can do is help me figure out a way out of this maze," Thea demanded not admitting to being lost even before hoodie guy came along.

"What's in it for me?"

"What- are you? I am not paying you."

"Night Queen," Roy said walking away again if the walk back home just so happened to pass a safer part of the unsafe neighbour just so the princess could get her bearings it was by pure coincidence.

"You know I could just follow you, see what your house looks like. It sure beats walking around in circles being lost. Plus you wanted to save me."

"Fine. I'll show you the way out of here."

"So what's your name?" Thea questioned sticking close to the teen.

"Roy now shut up."

"So why did you decide to help me?"

"Why did you decided to walk down an alley in the middle of the night?" Roy shot back.

"It's rude to answer a question with a question. But if you must know, I was trying to get away from the club to stop myself from doing something stupid."

"Stupider than walking through the back alleys of the Glades in the middle of the night?" Roy questioned, "What, were you on your way to the policeman ball as a black guy?"

"That is not funny," Thea said offended what she could only assume was his attempt of a joke.

"Do you see me laughing… I'm just saying there's nothing stupider than you walking around dressed up like that," Roy pointed out blatantly checking Thea out. For a rich princess, she sure did look good, then again if he had the money she did everything would probably look good on him, "Oh and the cops kill way too many people just for existing I don't find it funny. People like you will literally get away with murder while someone like me will probably get thirty years for stealing a loaf of bread."

"That's not fair I haven't-"

"I'll say call a cab to take you home, but no one will pick you up from this area especially at this time of night, your best bet is to call one of your friends to come and pick you up," Roy advised taking another turn coming out of the alley into a brightly lit street.

"Hey, wait you can't just leave me" Thea complained, looking up and down the empty street. While it might have been pleasant not to smell the medley of piss and trash from the alleyway, she was still lost in the Glades and if her 'saviour' left anything could happen to her.

"I've already saved you from being robbed and got you out of that maze. I've done my good deed for the day."

"I'll give you thirty bucks if you let me come home with you" Thea bargained. "I'll get my brother to come to pick me up within an hour."

x.x.x

"Thanks for letting me stay and for helping me." Thea smiled getting off the couch, she'd gotten Oliver's text saying he was outside.

Reaching into her purse, she brought out a hundred dollar bill and left it on the coffee table under her cup, although Roy had been a little standoffish with her he had taken care of her.

"It's not like you gave me much choice." Roy grumbled opening the door to see a posh-looking car on his driveway. "Fancy car" Roy whistled in appreciation.

* * *

Writer's thoughts and musing:

Felicity finally got an answer to a the question, Oliver decided to put the mission ahead of any feelings he might have for Felicity and Thea has finally met her knight in red hoodie.

My favourite part is the burgeoning friendship between Tommy and Diggle; calling each other with thier problems, Tommy and Carly trading recipes, watching sports together. Loving the bro-mance going on

Comments and reviews are appreciated


	9. Chinese food and getting drunk

Felicity both loved and hated her job.

She loved the people and the work, and she hated the people and the work, it was tedious at the best of times (the job, not the people) most of the things she was assigned could be done in her sleep.

Not to brag or anything she could literally code circles around ninety percent of the people in her department, but more importantly, she was a better cyber analyst than Onion breathe Aaron, so she didn't understand why she had to justify her work to someone so incompetent. "I'm saying if we leave in this feature, it will deter all future hackers and isn't that the point of a firewall?" Felicity questioned, "To stop people from getting a look behind the curtains and stealing all our trade secrets."

Aaron looked at the set of code on the screen and frowned at a particularly vicious line that would tear apart any data on someone's computer if they managed to retrieve anything from QE"It's illegal."

"No, it's not, I've checked" in fact, Felicity had double-checked to make sure everything she had planned for this new firewall was above board. After what happened with Cooper, she couldn't risk going to jail, the irony being her other job would probably land her in prison if anyone did find out. "I spoke to my friend in the cyber division at the FBI, and it may be frowned upon, but it is considered more like digital self-defence. It's a trojan horse a very sophisticated one, but it won't activate unless someone breaches our system and try to get their hands on our data."

"And who is going to explain that to the legal department" Aaron questioned unhappy with the answers he had just been given, he'd only just assigned this new firewall project to Felicity, there was no way she had a working prototype this early.

"I can, and I will" Felicity promised, this was her work, and she stood by it, she wanted to defend it. "If necessary I can have Amy send over an email or something stating that my work isn't actually illegal."

"Sorry to interrupt" Tommy cut in not looking in the least bit apologetic.

"Tommy, what are you doing here?" Felicity asked, confused, as far as Felicity knew Tommy and Oliver was still not speaking to each other.

"Dig called, wanted me to stop over your place tonight, thought I would pick you up instead and we can go get some food."

Felicity had all number of response prepared, but she really couldn't say half the things she wanted to so settled for a simple roll of her eyes and a reminder that Tommy and Diggle gossip way too much, "and by the way working nine to five actually means I finish at five, not four o'clock."

"No problem, I'll go visit Diggle, get the food and come back" Tommy responded, leaning against her cubicle, "don't spend all day working. Bye, Aaron."

"Sorry about him," Felicity apologised, once Tommy had walked away, "Now back to this feature the idea is-"

"This is a workplace, not where your boyfriend can just traipse-"

"Before you finish that sentence and make me get HR involved, Tommy isn't my boyfriend, he's a friend who happens to be a boy," Felicity said with ice in her voice, it was bad enough that Aaron patronised her daily he wasn't about to slut-shame her, especially when there was nothing to be ashamed of. "Now back to the firewall, it's a rough draft, but I think it would work."

x.x.x.x

* * *

"Hey."

"What are you doing here?" Roy asked wondering why Thea Queen was back on his doorstep that evening, at least she had the good sense to have her chauffeur wait for her.

"I wanted to thank you for last night."

"The money you left was thanks enough but feel free to give me some more for interrupting my evening." Roy groused irritated at being woken up, he had a trial shift at the docks and needed to sleep for a few more hours.

"So what are you doing?"

"Why. Are. You. Here?" Roy repeated debating on whether to slam the door in her face or to listen and find out the reason she had come looking for him.

"Question with a question." Thea pointed out, a small smile dancing on her lips, "I heard you on the phone with your friend-"

"You were eavesdropping, you mean."

"No… my point is I heard you say you need a job and my brother needs a bouncer at his club. Verdant, I thought you would be interested, it pays well, and it's right around the corner from your house. I talked my brother into giving you a trial shift tomorrow night if you can be there before the club opens."

"Do I look like a bouncer to you?" Roy questioned, he wasn't sure why he didn't just shut up and thank the rich princess. For the first time in his life nepotism was working out for Roy instead of screwing him over.

"You don't look like someone who goes around saving people from being mugged either, but you did." Thea smiled warmly over to Roy, triggering all his suspicion.

People like the Queens never cared about anyone but themselves and their own kind, so why was she doing this. "And you don't look like you've cared about anyone else in your life, so why now?"

"I was trying to be nice, but I guess a single act of kindness doesn't really mean a person isn't an arsehole."

"You've got that right, now if you've stopped trying to turn me into your charity case get off my doorstep" Roy growled slamming the door in Thea's face.

x.x.x.x

* * *

"He was worried about you" Tommy repeated following Felicity up the stairs into her apartment.

"Yes, you've said. But it still doesn't explain why he thinks I need a babysitter." Felicity groused switching on her lights before heading to the kitchen, luckily after being rejected by Oliver and getting annoyed with her mother Felicity had taken to cleaning her apartment, so the entire place looks like something out of a brochure.

"Nice place, so…. Oliver was a dick last night" Tommy threw out, taking the armchair and placing his offerings on the coffee table. "You could say he's a dick every night."

"What ice cream is that?" Felicity asked deflecting, coming back with plates and cutlery for their take-out as well as several wine glasses and a bottle of chardonnay she had chilling in the fridge. It was quite obvious what she was trying to do, and fortunately, Tommy was letting her.

"Cookie dough and there a plain vanilla one and a triple chocolate fudge plus a mint ice cream… I wasn't sure which one you'd like."

"Cookie dough is a winner." Felicity spoke, answering the unasked question, "This is very cliché girl gets her heart … and the friend brings over ice cream while the talk shit about him and the sad part is I haven't so much as kissed him" Felicity admitted.

"Well it's his loss, I bet you are a great kisser, the best, in fact, someone like you, looking like that. I bet you have men crawling on their hands and knees just so you look at them, am right, aren't I? Definitely" Tommy continued praising Felicity using absurd situation and was rewarded with a tiny smile.

"… I got told to get my shit together by an airhead model."

"I got told that I am someone to be proud of, by my emotionally distant father," Tommy confessed still reeling from the praise Malcolm had handed out. "Life is full of contradictions… so are we going to talk about it or are we going to ignore the whole thing? Because what does an airhead knows, you'll get your shit together when you are good and ready and not a moment too soon."

Felicity brows furrowed as she thought back to the last couple of weeks and the things she'd been doing and the people she'd been hanging out with and came to a realisation. "I think you are my friend" Felicity gasped, pouring a generous amount of white wine into her glass before handing Tommy the bottle to serve himself.

"I- wait, did you just realise that now?" Tommy asked, worried, had he been imposing himself onto her.

"No, no it's - it's crazy, but I didn't realise we've entered the friendship stage, you're on par with Diggle when it comes to talking about my day, and he's Diggle." Felicity finished as if that explained everything and it did. Diggle was… she liked to think of him as her guardian angel in an older brother-best friend-mentor-wise adviser-guru type of guy.

Diggle was everything and maybe if Felicity had fallen for him -instead of Oliver- she wouldn't feel like her heart had been stamped on by a herd of elephants right now.

"Very high praise indeed, well I glad you realised that we were friends, but I think it was kinda decided when you came up to me telling me off."

"And you've bought me food" Felicity pointed out digging into the take out bag and grabbing the sweet and sour chicken before handing Tommy his shredded beef. "If we weren't friends before we definitely are now."

"Got it, food the way to your heart."

"That and wine, computers and money, I could always use money."

"Look at your apartment and tell me you need money," Tommy demanded, looking around at the leather couches and the flat screen mounted on the wall.

Plus all the various knick-knack scattered about; the flat itself was really lovely, it was probably the same size as Tommy's own but in a slightly better and more hipster neighbourhood.

Moreover, Felicity knew things like colour schemes, so her place looked larger than his by default.

"I can count cards, and I've been known to cheat at a game of poker or two but really who says no to money?"Felicity quizzed.

"You know we can find you a better guy than Ollie for you to have a crush on," Tommy suggested

"Whose next, my last crush is a billionaire by day and avenging hero by night, it's kinda a tough act to follow." Felicity pouted still praising Oliver.

"Please" Tommy scoffed "If we are talking rich men I know at least three guys from Saturday who wanted to ask you out even after you spent an hour making out with the money man from the underworld. Billionaires are a dime a dozen hell if you want I can set you up on a date with Bruce Wayne, he owes me a favour."

"Bruce Wayne as in Wanye enterprises?" Felicity asked for clarification, "First of all stop name-dropping especially someone like Bruce Wayne and you've got to tell me how he ended up owing you a favour."

"He was stuck with a date he didn't like so I took one for the team," Tommy said shrugging his shoulders, it wasn't really as impressive or wild as his other stories involving Bruce.

"How chivalrous of you." Felicity deadpanned, billionaires trading dates like… Felicity couldn't think of a good simile right now, but she wasn't impressed.

"You asked, and I am a reformed asshole. Laurel changed me."

"I don't want a date with Bruce Wayne, I have enough trouble with Oliver. If you really want to make me feel better, get me a date with whoever runs the applied science department over at Wayne Enterprise or even the computer science department. No, get me a date with the person who designed their firewall, it is a work of art. Micheal Angelo only wishes that he could do something that amazing. I spent the last month testing their new firewall, and it kicked me out within five seconds, but I have this thing going on with someone in their cyber division, and they sent me a cute little bug that played cat gifs for three days straight before it released my baby from cyber bondage." Felicity sighed reminiscing about the genius who infected her laptop, the code was a work of art.

It gave Felicity so many ideas on what to do next how she could improve the system, it's what inspired Felicity's own firewall trojan horse.

"Should I just start looking into AI technology for you? I hear that some of them are pretty advance, although you probably know all about it, huh."

"I- hey! I don't want to date a computer I just appreciate a good code just as much as a good human body."

"This isn't even the weirdest thing you've said to me, but back to the topic at hand, someone needs to tell you that you can do some much better than Ollie. The man is a man whore."

"A-hem" Felicity coughed clearing her throat while giving Tommy a pointed look.

"I'm a reformed man whore; thank you very much, like I said Laurel changed me."

"Enough talk about Oliver, I am taking the night off, so Meryln senior, how was dinner with him. Sorry, I forgot to check in" Felicity apologised around a mouth full of chicken.

"He was nice to me. A part of me is still waiting for the other shoe to drop… he's being too nice."

"In what way?" Felicity didn't know enough about Meryln senior to be giving her opinion, but she could just be there for Tommy like he was for her.

"He texted me this morning asking me to have lunch tomorrow, lunch."

"That isn't so bad, you've both got to eat, right?"

"The last time Malcolm went out of his way to have lunch with me, my mum was still alive. You couldn't hack into his computer or something, check out his medical files find out if he needs a kidney or something."

"I could if you want me to" Felicity responded without blinking. If Tommy was worried Felicity would invade Malcolm Merlyn privacy until she found out what brand of toothpaste the man uses. "But as someone who got a text from her mum explaining a misunderstanding try to give your dad the benefit of the doubt."

"Find, keep the invasion of privacy on a back burner for later."

x.x.x.x

* * *

"Where's Felicity?" Oliver asked, a part of him knew he wasn't going to see her not after yesterday, but he still hoped that he would see her.

"At home, taking the night off," Diggle responded neutrally, with absolutely no judgement in his voice.

"Oh."

"There's a break-in at the bank, do you want to deal with it or should I?" Diggle asked clearing the scree of said notification, he was no Felicity but he could get the basics done.

x.x.x.x

* * *

"Bruce Wayne is Batman." Felicity gasped trying to sit up and slamming back down, the room was spinning enough as it is.

She should never have agreed to Tommy's plan of drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

While she enjoyed the various cocktails Tommy could make using the limited ingredients in her kitchen, she had a feeling that the hangover in the morning would not be worth the trouble of forgetting Oliver.

"You're drunk."

"You're drunk" she mimicked back because he was, they both were. "Think about it. A billionaire like Oliver, Check. Goes missing for a few years, Check. Dead parent, Check. Lives in a hell hole, check."

"Wh, what why."

"Shhh, not finished. He, where was I?" Felicity frowned trying to remember her list, "Corrupt cops, check and more importantly I like him and he doesn't know me ergo he's Batman."

* * *

**Writer's musings:**

It's past three in the morning here but I wanted to post this chapter before I went to sleep, hopefully I can wake up to some comments or PM's. Sorry for any typo but like I said it's very late in the day for me.

I really love the whole Tommy/ Felicity dynamic after tonight I am leaning on them just being best friends there is a connection there but I don't think it's romantic.

Roy and Thea have a long way to go but I already have a plan for these two and yes Roy will get the Mirakuru.

Comments reviews and such are welcomed.


	10. Under surveillance

Tommy and Malcolm found themselves sitting in yet another fancy restaurant in awkward silence once again. "Thanks for coming son" Malcolm said, remembering to be extra polite and friendly today. "So how are things with Laurel?"

"Good, there are good."

"That's nice, great even" Malcolm amended, "so I stopped by your place last night forgetting that you would be at the club, not sure if you neighbour told you." Malcolm let slip out.

"They didn't get the chance," Tommy replied staring off into the middle distance, he was trying to figure out if he had enough champagne for tonight since Tommy hadn't gone to the club last night he didn't know how much was used, then again Jessica knew the system and was really great at picking up the slack for Tommy when needed.

"I knew you were the manager of a night club I just didn't realise that you would stay out so late," Malcolm said cutting into Tommy's thought about whether or not he should tell Jessica that she was now the assistant manager by text or if he should wait until he could tell her face to face.

"Well, it is a night club, the clue is in the name," Tommy sighed, it had been less than five minutes here, and it already felt like an eternity. "This is just awkward. We've tried let's just go and-"

"How about we go somewhere else" Malcolm cut in before Tommy decided to leave. "Anywhere you like."

Tommy may not be the smartest person in the world, but he wasn't stupid either. There was always the possibility that Malcolm was playing him for whatever reason and the easiest way to find out was to test his dad. "Big Belly Burger" Tommy stated without blinking.

"Big Belly- that's fast food!" Malcolm stated in horror.

"Yeah I know it's fast food, but you asked where I wanted to go to lunch."

"How we go back to the house, I can have the chef prepare some steaks and a nice bottle of red for us."

"I just…" Tommy hesitated to accept the invitation, but a tiny voice in his head that sounded surprisingly like Felicity was telling him to give Malcolm the benefit of the doubt. "Mum did always call you a snob when it comes to food." Tommy declared getting up, "Tell Micheal to get the steaks ready, but we are going to cook it ourselves." He added as a healthy compromise, before being cut off having someone cooking for him an everyday occurrence but now Tommy had gotten used to fending for himself and making his own meals.

x.x.x

* * *

Half an hour later, both men found themselves standing in the kitchen preparing their own lunch.

"Since when did you cook?" Malcolm asked peeling the potatoes for Tommy.

"I did go to culinary school" Tommy reminded him while throwing some onions in the pan to sauté, he had no idea what he wanted to make, but a plan usual came to him halfway through prep.

"Don't remind me." Malcolm grumbled, "You got kicked out for smoking weed."

"You know I was good at it right. I know it was only a semester, but I love it there, liked it more than a business school."

"Then you shouldn't have gotten yourself kicked out."

"You could have fought to let me stay." Tommy needled, he had finally made peace with his mistakes a few years ago, but a part of him would always be hurt by Malcolm's dismissive attitude about Tommy's dream of one day being a chef.

"I think persuading the school not to press any charges after you destroyed their kitchen because you got the munchies was help enough." Malcolm snipped back.

"I knew you couldn't keep that nice guy routine going for long" Tommy stated, before Malcolm felt the need to apologise or worse yet, go back to being 'a nice guy' Tommy reassured him it was okay. "It's alright dad; honestly this who overly nice thing was creepy enough as it is. Once you are done with the potatoes start on the carrots and mushrooms, I just figured out what to make for lunch."

x.

Nearly three hours after he'd left the office for lunch Malcolm sat down to eat the cottage pie Tommy had made, it wasn't how he saw his day going, but he'd already planned on working from home for the rest of the day, so this extended interruption didn't do any harm.

"This is actually quite good" Malcolm complimented after the first bite.

"Try not to sound so surprised, I had to actually audition to get into Kendall. Probably one of the only times I didn't use your name or money to get things done." Tommy admitted.

"Well, I'm really proud of you." Once again a series of emotions flashed across Tommy face hearing that Malcolm was 'proud' of him before he could mask them, the most prominent one was still surprise.

"Thanks, Dad. Wait, shouldn't you be at work by now?" Tommy asked, getting a glimpse of the clock, it was nearly four in the afternoon, and Malcolm Merlyn barely did lunch unless there was some business aspect to it.

"I'm working from home for the rest of the day."

"You, you're really trying, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Anytime you want to leave the clubbing thing behind I know a few people who can get you help you run your own restaurant." Malcolm still planned to slowly gain Tommy's trust to get him to leave Verdant, but that didn't mean he couldn't start planting the seed now

"I'm happy where I am but thanks for the offer," Tommy replied. "You know mum and Raisa are the reason I like cooking" Tommy offered up the information as a way of ending the silence. "Remember those chocolate chip muffin mum used to make on our birthdays, well the first year after she died I really wanted some, and I knew where her recipe cards were so I tried making them by myself and nearly burnt down the Queen mansion. Until Raisa walked in and found me crying because it didn't taste right… she made me a new batch that tasted just like mum's, and I wanted to be able to do that, to be able to make mum's muffins anytime I wanted."

"I, guess I should thank her for that."

"She still works for the Queens if you ever want to stop by and thank her for taking care of me while you disappeared for two years. I should be going now I have work in a few hours." Tommy stated, wiping his mouth and getting up, he was sure some servant somewhere will be by within the minute to clear the plates away.

"Of course. We should do this again soon. I'll be in London for a few days but after I come back we can-"

"Yeah… I'll see if Laurel can make it next time." Tommy responded, taking the liberty to extend the invitation to her as well.

"It will be nice to catch up with the city's newest attorney, I can see where the legal and political landscape is like," Malcolm responded taking control as if the idea of spending an afternoon with Laurel Lance was abhorrent to him.

Tommy nodded as he walked past James on his way out, he had never wondered what the man did for his dad, and he wasn't going to start now.

"The device is in place" James informed, as Head of security it was up to him and only him to make sure that the personal task of Malcolm was done effectively and efficiently. So when Malcolm wanted a way to track his son's movement, it was up to James to plant the device on Tommy's car while the two of them sat down and had lunch.

Malcolm may be a bad father in many number of ways, but he sure did know his son, they hadn't even been in the restaurant for ten minutes before Tommy and Malcolm came walking out just like Malcolm had predicted.

"Good, and about the other thing?"

"Her name is Felicity Meghan Smoak, graduated top of her class from MIT, works for Queen consolidated. The file is in your office."

"Who is she to my son?" Malcolm specified that was the information he needed, not the girl's credentials.

"They seem to be friends, sir." James responded, "We have a team breaking into her apartment tomorrow. Ms Lance's apartment and your son have already been infiltrated, the team will be returning shortly with a report."

"Fine keep an eye on them as well as Oliver Queen."

"Of course sir, but like we said-"

"I heard you the first time James and yet I'm still paying you to by-pass Oliver's own security detail. I doubt you can infiltrate Queen mansion, but you can still follow the man and if your men can't do that feel free to do it yourself." Malcolm ordered sternly.

"Of course sir. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't suggest that several variables would be eliminated if you were to have Tommy live back home with you…"

"Advised noted. Once you infiltrated Smoak's apartment if there is nothing of interest, feel free to stop surveilling her and concentrate on Laurel and Oliver. I need to know exactly where my son is vulnerable, light surveillance until you hear otherwise."

"Right away, Mr Merlyn."

x.x.x.x

* * *

"I didn't think you would turn up" Oliver admitted studying Roy Harper, from what Thea had said the guy had been offended by the idea of a handout.

"Yeah well…" Roy shrugged, things down at the dock didn't pan out, and Roy still needed a job to make rent this month.

"Okay Roy why should I hire you."

"Does saying I need job work?" Roy asked sarcastically

Oliver didn't bother to give a verbal response and simply raise a single eyebrow while glaring at the kid in front of him, he really couldn't understand Speedy's interest in the guy. Sure, Roy didn't seem like the typical frat-boy Speedy hung around with but even looking at him now Oliver could tell Roy didn't like being here asking for a job.

"Look your sister said you needed a bouncer" Roy sighed, straightening up, "and I am serious about needing a job. Plus I saved her from being mugged."

"You don't look like much of a bouncer, but if you can mix drinks, you can be our new bartender," Tommy answered, walking through the open door into his office and hi-jacking the conversation.

He'd gotten the text from Speedy about a friend needing a job, and while he hadn't responded Tommy had planned on helping her out.

"Tommy."

"Oliver." Tommy returned with the same straight-laced tone of voice he had received.

"We need a bouncer."

Tommy just barely refrained from telling Oliver that he knew more about what the club needed than Oliver ever could and decided to take a more diplomatic approach.

"We also need a new bartender and no offence kid you look to be a hundred pounds soaking wet. Go downstairs, tell Jessica to put you to work and ask her to come to the office when she can." Tommy said, dismissing the guy.

"What are you doing?" Oliver asked frowning.

"Running a club, I know it's a foreign concept for you, but I have a job to do."

"Have I done something to offend you?" Oliver asked, picking up on the added hostility he was getting tonight.

"To me, no."

"But to Felicity I did." Oliver hazarded a guess, and from the glare Tommy levelled his way just for saying her name, he knew he was right on the money.

"I didn't say her name."

"You didn't have to, I know how close you two have gotten over... you've got to know I never meant to hurt her."

"You never mean to hurt anyone, but somehow you always manage to do it. Now if you don't mind, I have some work to do, and you probably have some criminal to kill or is tonight the night where you go around with a leggy blonde on one arm and a drink in another?" Tommy quizzed.

"What do you want from me, man. I have tried apologising a thousand times, tried explaining everything to you I just want-"

"I want you to be better Ollie. Do you realise the position you will be putting Diggle, Felicity and your family through if you ever get caught?" Tommy answered back, "How many people have you killed so far, ten, twenty, thirty, and how many of those people have friends and family who will like to get back at you. What will happen to Speedy or Miora? How many people will come after them just to get to you."

"That's not going to happen. No one will ever know about-"

"If you can't actually see the danger at least listen to someone who can." Tommy advised, "Find a way to protect them."

"I-"

"At least find a way to protect her" Tommy amended, "Diggle has training he will be able to hold his own, Miora will never let anything happen to Speedy, and even if she can't she will hire someone who can but Felicity? She's exposed, and she is too in love with you to see that, and you are feeling way too righteous in your mission to see that."

"She-"

"I'm not saying kick her out because you need her in this and she needs this as well just... Find a way to inoculate the people around you from the eventual fallout. Find a way to protect her."

Before any more could be said between them Jessica knocked on the slightly opened door, "Hey boss man, new guy said you wanted to see him?" she asked, walking in.

It was clear that she was referring to Tommy and not Oliver by that statement just from the simple fact that she hadn't even acknowledged the other man, just like most people she thought Oliver was nothing more than a playboy who only bought a night club just to have somewhere to party ever night.

"How would you like to officially be the assistant manager?" Tommy inquired rhetorically, "It comes with a salary increase and two nights off plus two weeks paid vacation so you can finally take Jason to six-flags like you've been promising."

Tommy knew that life as a single mother was hard, exhausting even but Jessica never let it get to her, she never complained about having to do two jobs or having to rely on family and friends to take care of Jason especially when she was working her during the night.

Tommy could still remember the very first day he met Jason, Jessica had picked him up from school and stuck him in one of the booths downstairs so he could finish his homework while she set up for the evening waiting for her mum to come to pick him up.

She had been so nervous about bringing Jason to work and was already apologising to Tommy before he could walk through the door promising to never let it happen again, needless to say, it happened again.

Needless still Tommy hadn't cared and told Jessica to bring her son over any time she liked, Verdant was one of the few places mother and son could spend any time together, and Tommy may be a dick at times, but he wasn't that big of a dick.

"Seriously. I thought you were about to fire me" Jessica exhaled calming down, "You've let five people go since Sunday and Felicity hasn't been coming around and-"

"I'm not letting you go," Tommy promised, realising that he may need to have a team meeting if Jessica of all people was worried about her job. "Just a job promotion if you want?"

"Yes, yes. Thank you." Jessica squealed running around the table to hug Tommy, "I have so many ideas for this place like renting it out during the day or maybe."

Oliver didn't hear anything else as he closed the door behind him and left Tommy to his meeting.

x.x.x.x

* * *

Felicity had barely begun the second night of being away from the cave, and she was already losing her mind. The fridge was now fully stocked thank to the miracle of online grocery shopping, and all her laundry was done, the apartment was clean and tidy.

How did people fo this all the time, didn't they get bored of being home?

Sure, it was nice to watch tv, but there is only so much shows one person could take before slitting their wrist.

Felicity phone went off, it was Sharon from work, "I know this is a long shot, but I thought you might just say yes to Zuma."

"No." Felicity declined the invitation, she was never so bored as to actually exercise, especially the night before her self defence lesson with Diggle.

"Come on, Lis" Sharon moaned down the line, "I never get to see you anymore, and the instructor is really really hot, and he has a thing for blondes. Very nimble body, zero percent fat and a nice big package under those-"

"Stop, stop stop" Felicity pleaded, pulling the phone away from her eyes.

"Please say yes," Sharon asked down the phone line.

"No" Felicity repeated once more, shutting down the idea of her going to Zuma, "But I will meet you afterwards and treat you to the croissant from that shop with the cute guy in the glasses."

Both Sharon and Felicity lived close enough to share the same coffee shops and once a ride into work when Sharon's car broke down, before this vigilante thing Sharon and Felicity were quite close friends they even had morning mimosas on Saturday.

"He got fired over a month ago," Sharon said dishing the goss, "Rumour has it that he was dipping his pen in the company's ink, and by company's ink I mean the owners wife and by pen, I mean his penis."

"Yes, I got that."

"How haven't you heard, it was a whole thing. Right major bust-up."

"I guess I have been busy lately."

"Yeah, too busy dating your new guy."

"What new guy?" Felicity asked, confused.

"Oh please," Sharon scoffed. "I don't care that you are sleeping with Tommy. God knows I'm not one to judge but at least be discreet about it."

"Wh- I'm not dating Tommy!" Felicity squeaked sitting up, "Do people think I'm dating Tommy?"

"If you don't want to come to Zuma with me I'll just have to come to you," Sharon said, changing the subject before swiftly hanging up the phone.

x.x.

"Do people really thinking I'm seeing Tommy?" Felicity asked, opening the door to find Sharon standing there with a bottle of wine, after last night Felicity knew her liver could use a break, but there was something about Sharon holding a bottle of Felicity's favourite red wine that made it impossible to resist.

"Well..."

"I'm not."

"I don't care if-"

"But I'm not. He's a friend. A good friend... actually more like a best friend."

"Look you know me, I always have your back, and I think you should cut loose a little and you know I'm not one to judge," Sharon admitted, following Felicity into the kitchen as she got a cork screwer and wine glasses.

"I'm not seeing him. Honest, I wouldn't want to mess it up with him."

"Okay, I believe you. I think it's kinda stupid of you not to jump his bones when you have the chance, but that's your decision to make. Have you seen those baby blues of his, a girl could drown in them."

"I-"

"I'm just saying onion breathe kept on pointing out that you disappeared and then less than ten minutes later Tommy also disappeared, and yesterday he came over, bought you dinner and drove you home."

"He didn't drive me home. I drove home in my car, and he drove here in his cars. Two separate vehicles, no one driving each other."

"I don't know what to tell you Lis, but that's the rumour going around."

"People know he has a girlfriend right" Felicity questioned.

"Yeah, and they also know that he's not exactly a saint."

"I just-"

"If you want my advice, ignore this the whole thing will blow over."

"I didn't even know about this until you said something," Felicity grumbled, it was effortless to ignore something she had no idea about but now that she knew that people thought she and Tommy were... how was she meant to ignore that?

"Oh yeah, well it's a good thing you have a friend like me who tells you what people are saying about you."

"Is it? Really."

"So if you haven't been boning Meryln for the past few months, what the hell have you been doing?" Sharon asked.

x.x.x.x

* * *

Over at the Queen manor, Thea received a text from Tommy saying her friend was his latest bartender. That was it, no checking in one her or well wishes, just a single sentence text saying Roy was a bartender.

There was something about this that hurt more than all her unanswered text and phone calls.

Sure she promised to never touch drugs again and to stop hanging out with the people who did it but right there and then sitting in a giant mansion by herself with literally no family or friend in sight Thea wanted to crawl under her bed and take the last few uppers that she had left.

x.x.x.x

* * *

"So from the top, what were you doing before you came to the police station to confess," Laurel demanded, she was determined to go over every single inch of Days story tonight before meeting with Krane's lawyer in the morning to talk plea deal. Hopefully, having a new (somewhat) reliable witness willing to testify against Krane the man would be willing to make a deal.

"I've already said a thousand times."

"And you will say it a thousand and one times. You are my key witness, and once you are on the stand, any little mistake will be used against me. And unlike other witness who I can just interview and prep anytime I want; you are in protective custody and the Marshalls won't allow me to just call you up anytime I need something clarified, so once more, what were you doing before you came to the police."

"I was at home about to get into bed, trying to forget a bad date."

"Mr Days did anyone pressured you into confessing your crime?"

"No"

"That's a lie. Stick to the truth. We may not be able to prove that the vigilant paid you a visit, but once you lie on the stand, no jury will take anything you say seriously. So did someone pressure you, Mr Days?"

"Kinda, he just said it was 'in my best interest to confess the truth and get police protection' before he was forced to come back."

"And he was…?" Laurel prompted wanting Phillip to be more clear about every aspect of his interaction.

"The vigilante, the Hood guy. I mean it was just my luck for the hood guy to show up after that Queen douche stole my girl, probably had sex right there in the parking lot."

"Excuse me?" Laurel asked perplexed and annoyed by the sudden tangent this had taken..

"You know he came up with some bull shit excuse of needing his computer fixed just so he could crash our date. He must have people stalking her or something because we weren't even going to go to that restaurant in the first place. He knew things like the wine she likes, and he kept throwing his money around not that she was any better" Phillip said continuing his rant, he wanted to finally tell someone about how big of a dick Queen was and unlike his new buddy; the marshal, the ADA was forced to listen to everything Phillip had to say. "She was all nice and cute before Queen shows up then she gets all stiff-upper-lipped and guzzling like a true wino. I mean Felicity actually had a couple of brain cells in her noggin, and she still fell for that bullshit jock stereotype. Only an idiot will fall for Oliver Queen, no offence." Phillip added realising that the prosecutor had dated Oliver, "But you get what I mean right? The man is the most prominent man-whore in the whole country."

"What are you talking about?"

"You asked me what I was doing before, right?" Phillip mused, "Well, it's not exactly important, but I was on the date, and I really liked her before your ex came and ruined everything."

* * *

**_Writer's thoughts:_**

Lots to unpack here seems like Tommy has been given it some extra thought, he well aware that if Oliver gets caught with his money and power that he will be okay but what about collateral damage.

What about Thea and Moira, Diggle and Felicity, the company as a whole? Also, I may change Tommy's name to Nestrodamus or something because his intuition is spot on. He has a feeling Oliver likes Felicity and voila, it's true. He thinks that Laurel will find out about the date and what do you know, and now he's suspicious of Malcolm which to be fair they all should have been from the beginning.

We all know that you can't trust Malcolm but why is he so worried about Tommy? Is it just because of his plans or is there something else at stake?

It's only been the second day of being away from the bunker and already Felicity doesn't know what to do but thank God for friends like Sharon who are there to get your minds off your trouble even if it's just to tell you something else.

And once again can I say poor Thea the girl really doesn't seem to have anyone her age that doesn't just hang out (even in the show) all her friends still go partying and still do drugs and here she is trying to stay on the straight and narrow.

Any storyline you guys want me to see let me know I have a feeling that after I edit the next three chapters I may hit a bit of a writer's block so I am up for any suggestion. Next chapter might include a Queen family dinner just because we haven't seen or heard from Moira at all, how is she coping with all this.


	11. Two shots of Vodka

Thea watched as Oliver stumbled into the dining room for breakfast. Just on the short walk from the walk to the table, he'd stopped to have a quick conversation with Rasia in Russian, he also started flirting with several of the newer staff.

"Could the sexual harassment at least wait until _after_ we've had breakfast?" Thea questioned, causing the new maid to jump and scurry away.

"Thea, behave." Moira reprimanded, today was too important to have her children bickering about God knows what. Moira needed to get her company in shape before the end of the week.

"He's the one flirting with the staff and whatever her name is she's probably naive enough to jump into bed with him.

"Fine Raisa fire the girl, there, are you happy now?" Moira ordered putting down the quarterly report, she still didn't know where to get a quarter of a billion-dollar from, but the spreadsheet had the answers somewhere.

"Of course I'm not happy but how would you know that you are so busy with work that I've barely seen you. And Oliver is so busy sleeping with anything with a pulse that he's barely been home in the last three days."

"Okay, you've made your point."

Thea threw her napkin down on her plate then stood up glowering over at the other two occupants in the room, the maids had made themselves scarce at the first sign of trouble like they'd been trained to do. "This family is falling apart, and I'm the only one noticing but guess what I'm done caring." Thea strolled out, ignoring Oliver's attempt at making her stay.

Moira paused for a second, allowing herself to regret what she was doing before pushing the emotion away, now wasn't the time to waver. "Finish eating breakfast we have the meetings with the head of departments today."

"Shouldn't we go after her?" Oliver questioned staring at the doorway Thea had stormed out through, he wasn't sure why his mom seemed so unconcerned about what just happened. The last time Thea had thought her life was falling apart, she'd turned to drugs and had wrapped her car around a lamp post.

"And say what, I assume you don't plan on sleeping with fewer women."

"Mom" Oliver frowned at her response.

"And I can't spend any more time away from work, with Walter missing I'm having to do both our jobs while helping with a police investigation. I can't promise her to spend more time at home, so there is really no use in chasing after her and offering up empty promises just to let her down again."

Oliver stunned by how callous she sounded, she hadn't even reacted to how upset Thea was.

"I'm going to work, hope I see you there before the meeting, I'll be announcing a new partnership, and we will be talking about where to find the money. **Don't** be late." Moira finished sternly, she just hoped that for once Oliver could make it into work on time. Gathering up the documents she signalled to the men to get the car ready and walked away, leaving her half-eaten breakfast behind.

"Hold on you can't just-"

"Invite Tommy over for dinner maybe that would appease her." Moira threw out just before stepping across the threshold.

"Mom, mom!" Oliver called out and was ignored was once more. Oliver was now the only one sat at the breakfast table surrounded by a family-sized breakfast and various empty seats.

"You need to do better," Raisa informed walking back in, she had the other staff waiting in the kitchen.

"Raisa."

"She's spent more nights by herself now than when you were stranded on that island, do better." At least when Moira hadn't been at home before Walter had been there, stepping in so, Thea hadn't been as lonely.

"How bad is it?" He was afraid of what the answer would be, he couldn't save this city just to fail Thea.

Raisa hesitated in answering, it wasn't bad. Thea had yet to do anything, she snuck a friend up into the house two nights ago, but the boy had just spent some time watching tv downstairs and making fun of the fact that Thea was still in school before going home.

Nothing terrible had happened, _but_ Raisa had raised both Queen children she knew when each of them was starting to feel self-destructive. Thea was holding on for now; however, it was only a matter of time before the girl turned to a more destructive form of entertaining herself, "Я скажу ей, что ты будешь дома сегодня вечером."

x.x.

Moira took the opportunity of being chauffeured around to think about this morning. It wasn't that she didn't care about what Thea was going through. Still, between running Queen Consolidated, being in a Kabul planning the undertaking and trying to reassure the investors and the board that she had a handle of things, she simply had no time left to give.

And time was something she needed a lot of, things were happening way too quickly for Moira taste, she only had twenty-two hours and counting for her men to infiltrate Meryln Manson and find any information about where Walter was hidden.

Moira had expected Malcolm to put the fear of God into her husband and stop him looking into what happened to the Queen's Gambit not to outright kidnap the man.

Malcolm was clearly losing his mind to paranoia, it hadn't taken long for Moira's men to notice how some of Malcolm's men were tailing her son.

For once Oliver's predilection for partying and clubbing actually helped, Malcolm's men weren't interested in following Oliver into Verdant; not when page six had a step by step account of Oliver's every movement the next day.

And if all that wasn't enough Wayne Enterprise and reached out; they were looking for someone to partner up within their latest line of home security and had chosen her company. The project was literally in its inception stage, and already Moira could tell that it was going to be a tremendous undertaking hence the meeting with all the head of departments this morning.

x.x.x.x

* * *

Laurel wasn't sure what to do with the additional information Phillip Days presented with earlier on in the week. The fact that Oliver went on a double date with her key witness should have no bearing on her case against Krane, the fact that Oliver was jealous that he stalked and crashed another man's date was irrelevant to her case.

The defendant's team won't care unless they did.

Unless they called Oliver up as a witness to testify to Phillip's state of mind just before he walked into a police station only to confess. According to Phillip's testimony, Oliver, his date and Felicity Smoak had been some of the last people to see him before he 'willing' walked into a police station to confess to his crimes. Oliver could be called to testify about Phillips state of mind that night, so Laurel had to get ahead of this.

She needed to cover all her bases, she would also need to talk to Felicity Smoak as well, the woman would have a greater insight into her date's mind than Oliver.

Convincing herself, it was the right thing to do Laurel informed her boss that she needed to step away from the office to run down another lead before she made her way to Queen Consolidated.

x.x.x.x

* * *

"This is so creepy," Felicity announced her voice bouncing around the empty space and echoing back to her. She'd force Diggle to use his security badge to sneak her onto the eleventh floor there were loads of rumours flying around about what happened to the eleventh floor.

Felicity didn't think it was haunted by a ghost, and she didn't believe the asbestos story, but they had to be a reason why the entire floor had been emptied out. An entire department displaced forced to move into Tower B while their original 'home' was torn apart.

Everything had been removed; the only thing left was literally the building blocks, there wasn't even a pin in place, all the carpets had been ripped out as well giving the site a dystopian vibe. "What do you think happened here?" She asked standing in the middle of the floor and looking around. "Why would they clear out an entire floor."

"I'm sure you will find out soon now let's go." Diggle sighed, he still had the elevator door opened, "I want to get some lunch."

Felicity looked around once more before making her way to Diggle, "Does this have anything to do with why all the heads of the department have been stuck in a meeting since this morning?"

Diggle ignored the question and pressed the button for the cafeteria, "It's your turn to get lunch."

x.x.

"So when do you think you will be back?" Diggle asked broaching the subject with as much sensitivity as he could. He didn't want to pressure Felicity in returning or even rush her, but they needed her.

With Felicity not able to be on comms, the job had naturally fallen on Diggle so he couldn't be out there providing back-up for Oliver.

Plus there was the vital detail of Diggle being useless at the computer, he couldn't do a quarter of the things Felicity could, he couldn't hack into mainframes or download things let alone get the blueprint for a building. Because of Diggle's lack of computer skills, Oliver had been out-numbered and nearly got killed the other night.

"I was thinking tonight," Felicity confessed chewing on her bottom lip and pushing her plate away. The salad had already lost its appeal before she'd even sat down, she should have gone for the curly fries and barbecue chicken pizza like she wanted. "If you'll have me that is, I know I kinda left you in the lurch, but I'm ready to make up for it."

"You didn't leave us in the lurch" he denied. "You needed some time away, and that's okay."

"I kinda miss the lair and the computers and the crime fighting."

"Are you sure you are ready to come back?" Diggle believed in Oliver's mission there were corrupt people in their city making it worse for everyone and they needed to be stopped, but he also didn't want it to be at the cost of Felicity's happiness.

"Yeah… it's funny the whole getting over someone by getting under someone else is really true. I'm not saying I'm over Oliver, but I'm ready to move on."

"So you…"

"No, NO!" Felicity blushed, she didn't mean it like that. She hadn't slept with anyone, "I meant _him_, Oliver. Reading about him sleeping with all these women it kinda just… I'm sure half the stories are made up, and I'm not trying to slut-shame him, but he's been partying a lot lately."

Diggle didn't have much to contribute to that so allowed Felicity to keep going. Yes, Oliver had been clubbing almost every single night this week, but it wasn't his place to speculate as to why. Oliver was a grown man and if he wanted to sleep through dozens of women just to work out his feelings that was up to him. Hopefully, with Felicity coming back, Oliver would take a step back from the party scene, "I for one would be glad to have you back, the lair feels a little lonelier without you."

"Thanks Dig." Felicity really appreciated the sentiment, she hoped Oliver felt the same way tonight. "So how was your date with Carly?"

x.x.x.x

* * *

Laurel struck out at Queen Consolidated, she's managed to get to Oliver's office, but that was where her journey ended. According to Stephanie Olivers' secretary 'Mr Queen wasn't available to see her', 'Mr Queen didn't have a minute to spare'. And 'Mr Queen would be busy all week' however if Laurel needed Stephanie could book an appointment or take a message.

After twenty minutes of arguing Laurel had gotten tired of getting the run around and had tried playing the DA card which Stephanie swiftly countered by calling QC's lawyers. Therefore Laurel couldn't even talk to Oliver or Felicity Smoak without them trying to get her disbarred.

x.x.x

* * *

Moira's already exhausting day was made even longer an email telling her that ADA Laurel Lance wanted to talk to Oliver and Felicity Smoak.

Moira had cut the meet short and had pulled Oliver into her office and swiftly closed all the blinds. "Do you want to tell me why the DA is interested in your and Ms Smoak."

"Felicity?" Oliver asked, confused, wondering how and why his mum even knew of her, "Wait did you say the DA."

"Yes, Oliver I said D.A. Laurel came to your office wanting to question you and she happened to mention Ms Smoak's name." Moira informed walking over to the bar and pouring herself two fingers of top-shelf vodka and drinking it in one gulp before repeating the action two more times. She couldn't be sober when she asked what she was about to ask next "Please tell me you didn't sleep with this girl."

"No! Felicity is a friend."

"I'm sure she is" Moira scoffed, she'd seen a picture of the girl, in fact, Moira had seen everything the company had on this girl from her date of employment to her next of kin.

"She really is a friend, Tommy knows her."

"This isn't the first time Tommy's known one of your '_friends_'"

"Mom!"

"If your dick causes us this partnership, I will cut it off and ship it back to Lian Yu myself."

Before Moira could continue any further, someone knocked on the door, and a group of the company lawyers walked in.

* * *

_**Writer's note:**_

I think this is the first time I've written about 's been a long time since Moira was on the show so I don't quite have her voice down, I know she's ruthless but she was also loving, she just wanted the best for her kids. Moira seems to still be on the chessboard, she's still actively participating in the undertaking even if she wants her husband back.

LL is just something, a part of me wants to believe she is truly going over to Queen Consolidated because of the potential of the defence team to call up Oliver and Felicity as witness but I don't believe it quite yet.

Also, Yaaaay Felicity is going back to the lair and Bruce Wayne is coming or at least his company is coming into town does anyone else smell an opportunity for Felicity to get to know someone else or is it just me.

Last but not least Arrow is officially over, I have to say I am bummed but I do love the Olicity of it all, although the fact that she chose to die and leave Mia behind just doesn't sit right with me... I don't know it's just my opinion.


End file.
